A division bench of Calcutta High Court, comprising Justice Banerjea and Justice Arunava Basu, today stayed the recommendation of West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission (WBERC) with regard fixation of electricity tariff for the year 2000-01, 2001-02. The state government had filed the case.
WBERC had refixed the tariff rate of electricity for the year, 2001-01, 2001-02 at the same rate for all consumers and terminated all cross-subsidy in the previous tariff structure.
It had done do after the Supreme Court had ruled that the state government would have to pay subsidy and not resort to cross-subsidy based tariffs in determining cost of power to consumers.
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WBERC had placed in the same category both commercial and domestic consumers. As a result, users consuming power in the range of 25 to 300 units would have had to pay 60 per cent more than existing rates.
Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC) opposed the appeal and contended the recommendation of ERC was a correct step. BCC said the appeal was a stunt to misguide people before the ensuing panchayat election.
CESC supported the state