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Tariff arrears: HC seeks Govt. affidavit

By Our Staff Reporter

Kochi SEPT. 13. A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the State Government to file an affidavit detailing the tariff arrears owned by various Government departments and agencies to the KSEB. The Bench comprising Justice Cyriac Joseph and Justice A. K. Basheer ordered that the affidavit be filed on or before October 7.

The directives were issued when pending writ petitions challenging the tariff hike and seeking recovery of arrears from various Government departments came up before the Bench.

As the Government had already withdrawn the tariff hike, two writ petitions -- one by Pradeep Parappuram, general secretary, Nationalist Youth Congress, and another by the Centre for Civil Liberties and Public Causes -- had become infructuous.

The directive came on a petition filed by K. J. Mathew of Kottayam and the Samatha Law Society.

In a petition filed today, Mr. Mathew sought a direction to the State Government to switch off air-conditioners used by various departments to save power consumption. He pointed out that the Minister for Electricity, Kadavoor Sivadasan, had recently urged the consumer to use electric light less and not to switch on heaters, washing machines and mixies from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. If the air-conditioners in the Government department were switched off, a lot of energy could be saved, he said.

The petitioners had said that without collecting dues from a large number of consumers which ran into Rs. 4,000 crores, the Board was claiming that it was running at a loss. In fact, no steps had been taken by the Board to collect dues from defaulters.

The petitioner had pointed out that a financial liability of Rs.82 crores due to the purchase of electricity from the Thermal Power Plant could not be a reason for enhancing tariff, especially in view of the huge arrears due from various authorities including the Departments of Local Administration, Health, Industries and Revenue, Kerala Water Authority(KWA) and KSRTC.

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