| The state has given its approval to the Mahadiscom's proposal at a meeting chaired by the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh held at state guest house Sahyadri on Tuesday evening. |
| As per the statutory requirement, every power utility has to submit their ARR to the power regulator for each financial year. The Mahadiscom's ARR would be submitted to the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Authority (MERC) in a day or two. |
| Energy minister Dilip Walse-Patil confirmed that the government has given approval to the Mahadiscom's ARR for 2006-07. |
| The ARR is an exercise which tries to calculate the rate of return on investments by trying to take into consideration various factors such as annual income and expenditure and circumstances which are likely to affect its income and expenditure. |
| Considering factors such as a big increase in fuel prices, almost double in case of gas and expensive purchase of power by the utility to bridge the gap between demand and supply the move was expected. |
| The power utility has advocated for a rise in the tariff upto 30 per cent for various categories of consumers. It has sought least hike for agricultural pumps and maximum hike for the commercial establishments. |
| Meanwhile, MERC has rejected the proposal of Mahadiscom for levying load management charges on the consumers who would use excess power than their average use, saying that levying such charges would amount to a change in the tariff structure. |
| The power regulator has also rejected the Mahadiscom proposal to shut down power supply to cinema halls, malls and other commercial establishment during peak hours to reduce power shortage, as it is an impractical proposal. |
| The MERC has also rejected the Mahadiscom's proposal for not supplying power to agricultural pumps during peak hours as rural areas are already facing the brunt of load shedding of 12-13 hours. |
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