Pay more for power in eastern suburbs

At least 1.2 crore residential consumers across the state, who were earlier spared a tariff hike, will have to pay more for power because the electricity regulator made accounting and assessment errors while calculating tariff. Dharmendra Jore reports.

At least 1.2 crore residential consumers across the state, who were earlier spared a tariff hike, will have to pay more for power because the electricity regulator made accounting and assessment errors while calculating tariff.

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Users will have to pay four to 41 paise more per unit per month from December 1.

On Thursday, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) revised its own order, in which it had miscalculated the tariff, and allowed the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Corporation (MSEDC) to recover additional revenue of Rs 1,136.27 crore from 1.71 crore consumers in the eastern suburbs of Kanjurmarg, Bhandup and Mulund, neighbouring Thane and Navi Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra.

The regulator admitted to the errors made while determining the MSEDC's tariff in September. MSEDC had asked for a reviewing tariff order as every utility has the right to point out the commission's errors and ask for a revision. MERC and MSEDC refused to comment. The revised hike is 7%. The earlier was 3%.

"There can't be multiple tariff hikes in a year. In some cases, utilities submitted wrong inputs, based on which it revised the tariff," said Sandeep Ohri, a MERC-approved consumer representative.