The Electricity Consumers Forum, a civil society body, has urged the OERC not to accept the proposal of power distribution company to enhance power tariff stating that the company, TPNODL, has already hiked the tariff twice ever since it took over and a further hike will hit the consumers.
“The TPNODL has already enhanced the tariff twice since 2020 and again is contemplating to hike the tariff, we came to know. This will be as good as cracking the whip on the common consumers. Hence, we appeal to the regulatory body to reject the proposal in the interest of millions of consumers,” forum convener Santosh Das said.
He added that the tariff hike shouldn’t be an annual business and should be fixed for 5 years. The Government owned electricity board was handed over to Nesco, a private company, showing the reason for loss yet the latter too went into losses. The Nesco had hiked tariff thrice in the last 5 years .When the sector was handed over to TPNODL, it too followed the same practice of implementing hike again and again.
The forum besides urging the OERC to reject the proposal of hike also urged free electricity to the domestic consumers of up to 200 units. It also urged to fix tariff at Rs 1.25 per unit up 400 units and beyond Rs 2.50 per unit. The forum, besides demanding free electricity to the agriculture sector, demanded Rs 3 per unit power supply to the MSME units. It also said that for executing the proposal of the forum, the guaranteed profit to the company to be reduced from 16 percent to 6 per cent.