Mysore:The proposal to hike the electricity price to 80 paise per unit, by the Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (CESCOM), has angered the consumers who have criticised it as unscientific and unnecessary here on Monday.
In a public meeting of the Karnataka Electricity control commission on 2015-16 held to consider the claims of CESCOM, under the the presidentship of M R Srinivasmurthy, the CESCOM Managing director said, “The gross loss for FY 2015-16 that the CESCOM would incur, is 466.09 crores by the end of 2016.”
“In 2013-14 we incurred Rs 15.61 crore and Regulatory asset 65.80 loss and this year it may go upto Rs 80.97 crore as there is also lack of coal after the Supreme Court decision”, he added.
KIADB officials however, disputed the figures shown by CESCOM said, “comparing the year 2013-14 CESCOM had incurred the loss of Rs 256 crore and previous year it dropped down to Rs 15.61 crore. The trend has remained the same. We just don’t understand how CESCOM has come up with such huge loss numbers”, they said.
Around Rs 400 crores is due from the civic authorities, for the electricity supplies for street lights. CESCOM has failed to collect Rs 1,105.27 crore but CESCOM is only cutting the power lines of small scale industries if they fail to pay bill in time. The rules should be equal to all. There should be an online interface, which will lessen the corruption. We should use technology to prevent the dependency of consumers on officials so that it will help to maintain transparency,” a member of the public, who was present at the hearing, said.
No protective gear used
Speaking about the frequent deaths of linemen in recent days, Srinivas murthy asked what sort of protective gear CESCOM has, and are they using it? CESCOM MD said that they have provided all the required gear, and the linemen are using it. When the public contradicted his averments, he confessed that all the officials are not wearing it and said that will take action against those officials who don’t use it.”
Though there are 24×7 helplines, 1800-425-1916 and 1912 are devoted to respond to the public grievances but till now it has not been used by public upto the expectation. But members of the public had a different story to tell. They said the officials delayed their responses and they had lost confidence in the efficacy of the helplines.
Members H D Arun Kumar, D B Manivel Raju, member, many other CESCOM officials and public organisation representatives participated in the meeting.
MIA: revise the prices of small scale industries
Mysore Industries Association, (MIA) has said that only 4.5 percent of the electricity is used by small scale industries in the state and their products are meant for the export market. They have asked the administration as to why the cross subsidy is being given to certain industries which is hampering the quality and it is burdening the industrial sectors.
The demanded that the commission reject the proposal of hiking the electricity charge by 80 paise per unit and also to revise the industrial electricity prices. the commission which has directed to install timers for street lights, said this is yet to happen and it is better to hand over the project to KIADB and KSSIDC.
“Instead of encouraging use of solar water heaters by domestic consumers CESCOM has proposed to withdraw power tariff rebate of 50 paise per unit for solar water heater consumers which is not acceptable,” MIA said.
CESCOM has also proposed to convert self-employed tailors, auditors, beauty parlours, home tutorials, DTP typing, paying guest, goldsmith, astrology and other micro self-employed service activity undertaken in residential houses into commercial category with Rs three per unit which is an additional burden to all small scale units, the MIA said.
