The Orissa High Court today stepped in to grant a major relief to electricity consumers in the state when it stayed the proposed power tariff hike being enforced by Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) from 1 April.
Admitting a PIL (public interest litigation) filed in this connection, a Division Bench of the High Court consisting of justices B P Das and B K Mishra in an interim measure ordered that the power tariff as fixed by OERC for the financial year 2011-12 shall not be collected from the consumers.
The High Court issued notices returnable within two weeks to the state government, OERC, all the power distribution companies and power generation corporations of the state.
The court has also issued the notice to the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), which has been made an opposite party in the PIL.
Alleging that electricity generation, transmission and distribution are being done in a very arbitrary manner by the private companies in the state without any transparency in their fund management, the PIL had demanded for a CBI enquiry into the allegations.
Keonjhar Navnirman Parishad, a registered trust represented by its secretary Dilip Kumar Mohapatra, its joint secretary, Girija Sankar Panda and Arun Kumar Sahu, an electricity consumer of Cuttack had filed the PIL on Wednesday questioning the rationale behind the recent decision of OERC to hike the power tariff.
The petition had maintained that despite the Electricity Act, 2003, the companies engaged in electricity generation, transmission, distribution and trading have completely failed in protecting the interest of the consumers to provide electricity at an affordable price.
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Quoting the CAG report for the year ending 31 March, 2009 that deep rooted inefficiency, corruption and callousness in hydro power generation have resulted in below capacity operation in this sector, the petitioners had urged the High Court to institute a CBI enquiry to find out the persons who were responsible for such loss of public money.
In a notification issued by OERC, the power tariff was increased by nearly 20 per cent overall.
However, the move was particularly harsh on domestic consumers who were subjected to a 40 per cent hike.
The domestic consumers now have to pay Rs 1.40 per unit for the first 50 units, instead of first 100 units as provisioned earlier.
Similarly, up to use of 200 units, they will now have to pay Rs 3.50 per unit while for consumption of electricity between 200 and 400 units, the tariff will be Rs 4.30 per unit. Consumers using above 400 units would be charged at the rate of Rs 4.80 per unit.
Earlier, consumers had to pay Rs 3.10 per unit to use up to 200 units and Rs 4.10 per unit for consumption beyond 200 units.