Citizens to pay more for power

The distribution wing of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), now Mahavitaran (MV), proposes to increase the rate of electricity supplied to consumers across the board within the next few weeks.

The proposed increase is being touted as a ‘minimal increase’ for those in the lower consuming groups with a 20% rate hike to 50% rate hike for consumers who consume energy in excess of 300 units per month.

Consumers in Mumbai would be subjected to hikes in the 30 to 50% range. The electric supply scenario in Maharashtra is muddled by several factors over which the consumer has little or no control. Electricity ‘transmission losses’ (a misnomer for electricity theft) has come down from a record 35% to 22% or thereabouts, but consumers are still not questioning the authorities on why the consumer has to pay Mahavitaran excessive sums and subsidising the blatant power theft in the state.

Analysts have also pointed out that a sum of over Rs10,000 crore is owed to MV by industries and manufacturing units all over the state and no effort is made to chase these creditors and recover the money due to the organisation. On the other hand, the BEST or Reliance Energy in Mumbai will not hesitate to stop supply to a consumer who does not pay his electric bills on time.

A large part of the blame for shortage and high tariffs in the electricity sector must also go to the planners and politicians who have not allowed new power plants to come up in the state. Maharashtra has the dubious distinction of having not set up additional power units in the eighties and nineties which has seen power shortages and increased capital inputs to set up power plants in the past. The problem has been further accentuated by Ratnagiri Power Plant Project.

In a classical case of creating a problem and then applying balm to solve it, consumers are now being told that unless they shell out more, ‘precious power’ may not be easily available to them.