This means cutting supplies to malls and shopping complexes will hardly make a difference to the state’s power crisis. Maharashtra faces a daily shortfall of about 4,500MW of power.
Malls may be the current figure of hate among residential power consumers, but if experts are to be believed, all such shopping destinations across Maharashtra put together consume barely 65MW of power a day as against the state’s total demand of 15,000MW.
This means cutting supplies to malls and shopping complexes will hardly make a difference to the state’s power crisis. Maharashtra faces a daily shortfall of about 4,500MW of power.
Some parties have been railing against the alleged preferential treatment given to malls by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (Merc). The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, for instance, had claimed that malls were receiving uninterrupted power supply even though the rest of the state was in darkness.
The MNS and the Shiv Sena also opposed Merc’s decision to lower power tariffs for malls and multiplexes while raising tariffs for residential consumers.
“Residential consumers feel that the energy consumed by malls in unwarranted and they must pay a huge price,” one expert, who did not want to be named, said. “However, this is not fair. Malls should also be treated as any other commercial consumer.”
The expert pointed out that under the Electricity Act, power must be supplied to every consumer, big or small. Also, tariffs must be standardised such that the smallest consumer bears not less than 80% of the average cost of supply while big consumers pay not more than 120%.
But as per the current tariff structure in Maharashtra, big consumers like industrial and commercial units subsidise residential consumers to a much larger extent. To achieve parity in tariffs by 2011-12, Merc had tried to reduce the cross-subsidy. But the move ran into intense political opposition, particularly with the assembly elections looming.
The government put Merc’s decision on hold and told the power regulator that reduction of cross-subsidy must be deferred until a roadmap is designed for the task and also for encouraging economical usage of resources.
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