The Kerala High Court on Wednesday directed the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) not to pass any order revising the tariff for high tension and extra high tension consumers till July 10.
Justice C.S. Dias passed the interim order on a writ petition filed by the Kerala High Tension and Extra High Tension Industrial Electricity Consumers’ Association and others.
According to them, Kerala State Electricity Board Limited filed a petition before the commission in February 2023 seeking to revise the tariff of HT and EHT consumers for the years 2022-23 to 2026-27 based on the average cost of supply.
In fact, the association had been emphasising the need for voltage-wise tariff and determining cross-subsidy based on voltage-wise cost. However, the commission was not implementing voltage-wise cost of supply in framing tariff for different categories of consumers.
The petition added that the additional cost incurred for transmitting and distributing electricity to HT and EHT consumers was much less, compared to low voltage consumers.
Around 75% of the entire manpower and infrastructure were used for managing the energy supplied to low tension consumers. However, the commission was determining tariffs only on the basis of average cost of supply, wherein the cost of supply at different voltage levels is pooled together and averaged out for all the consumers.
This has resulted in a distorted cross-subsidy in the system, as the consumers at higher voltages contribute much less to losses and administrative expenses to the system as against consumers at lower voltages.
It also went against the electricity policy issued under the provisions of the Electricity Act 2003 and the tariff policy framed by the Power Ministry. The petition also sought to declare that the tariff regulation framed by the commission is illegal.
