Island city to pay for BEST transport loss

Island city’s power consumers will have to continue to pay for loss that the BEST undertaking is incurring in the transport business.

Island city’s power consumers will have to continue to pay for loss that the BEST undertaking is incurring in the transport business.

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The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission, on Wednesday, rejected a review petition seeking the scrapping of the transport deficit loss recovery charge. In the review petitions filed before MERC in January, petitioners Balkrishna Shetty and DK Shetty sought the scrapping of loss recovery charge and the refunding of the amount collected so far to 10 lakh consumers.

They wanted BEST to improve efficiency in transport business and not burden electricity consumers who constitute a mere 25% of the city’s population that uses the transport facility.

BEST supplies power to the population only up to Sion in the eastern corridor and up to Mahim in the western corridor while the transport division is operating in all suburbs of Mumbai, Thane, and Vashi.

In 2012, MERC allowed BEST to recover Rs.1187.71crore in transport deficit from financial year 2004-05 to financial year 2008-09 through monthly tariffs. The undertaking has already started the recovery process and would continue it until 2015-16.

MERC based its decision on the Supreme Court’s ruling that the electricity distribution business of BEST could or should subsidise its other business.