The Hindu : KSEB tariff hike will hit common man hard

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 17, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

KSEB tariff hike will hit common man hard

By A. Harikumar

ALAPPUZHA May 16. The Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) is found to have hiked the charges of its various services manifold in the last one year through orders, without announcing the details about it in public. The board has also introduced charges for various facilities which were freely offered earlier.

Hikes ranging from two to 250 times of the existing charges have been effected on various items. These include hike in application fees for new electricity connection, power allocation, reconnection, extension of existing lines and reinstallation of electric posts and lines. The board has also steeply hiked the application fees for various items.

Rent has been introduced for electric metres for the first time. The monthly charge called the `rental charge' effected from consumers for the cost of installing new electric lines has also been steeply raised.

At the same time, it is learnt that the board has stopped the facility to rectify faults on holidays. The `power adalats' for quickly disposing of consumers' complaints have been discontinued. Reports indicate that the voltage fluctuations in many areas and load shedding continue to trouble consumers even after all these hikes.

It has been alleged that some of the new charges introduced are unreasonable and will mainly affect the common man. Sources say that the charges of Rs. 10 collected from consumers having single-phase connection and Rs. 20 from those with three-phase connection as rent for the electric meter were unreasonable. Considering the price of Rs. 450 for a single metre, a consumer would repay the price in four years.

But the board's decision was to make the consumer pay perpetually, say the sources. According to them, the estimated income to the board from this count was Rs. 96 crores every year.

The sources say that the minimum tariff to be paid by a consumer who uses 30 units of power per month and if the board has to install new lines to a length of 200 metres and erect four posts for a new connection is Rs. 170. This is more than five times the charge a new consumer had to pay earlier. This would make it impossible for the poor living in the remote `Laksham Veedu' colonies to take a new connection, the sources say.

The abolition of holiday wages to employees who are on duty on Government holidays has resulted in a situation where consumers have to wait for the next working day to get their fault rectified.

According to the new rates, the application fees for a new connection has been increased from Rs. 2 to Rs. 50 and the fees for complaints, including faults of meter and low voltage, has been hiked to Rs. 10 from Rs. 2. The inspection fees charged from single phase, three phase, high tension and extra high tension consumers have been increased to Rs. 25, Rs. 50, Rs. 200 and Rs. 500 from Rs. 5, Rs. 10, Rs. 100 and Rs. 250 respectively.

The application fees for power allocation collected from Low Voltage, HT and EHT consumers have been hiked to Rs. 50, Rs. 100 and Rs. 500 from Rs. 2. For consumers using 10 KW and above, the power allocation processing fee has been introduced for the first time. This fee ranges from Rs. 100 for consumers using 10 KW-50 KW to Rs. 15,000 for those consuming 6,000 KW and above.

The reconnection fee, which was Rs. 5 earlier, has been increased to Rs. 30 now. The charge to be paid by the consumers to the board who want to install their own generators has been hiked depending on their capacity. The fee ranges from Rs. 100 for a generator of 5 KVA power to Rs. 2,000 for a generator of 10-50 KVA and Rs. 3,000 for a generator of 50-100 KVA capacity.

The line extension application fees and application fee for shifting power lines and electric posts have also been hiked from Rs. 2 to Rs. 50.

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