THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The consumers who paid exorbitant amounts for the power they consumed during the lockdown period are unlikely to get any money back. While Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) said it would rework the tariff pattern to address the grievances, sources in the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC), which is supposed to approve any tariff change, said the issue is unique owing to the lockdown and the electricity board cannot pass the buck.
“Changing the pattern of fixing tariffs is a long process. The current situation is an unprecedented one. It’s purely an internal matter of KSEB as no meter reading was done during the lockdown. The KSEB can’t just pass the buck to the KSERC. They should ideally take the average of the consumption for a period of six months,” a KSERC ex-member told TNIE.
Neither KSEB nor consumer can be faulted, says chairman
The electricity board follows a slab system where a consumer using up to 250 units per month will pay as per a telescopic tariff system which is less compared to the tariff for those who use more than 250 units per month, which comes under the non-telescopic category.When TNIE pointed out the KSERC’s response on the tariff, KSEB chairman N S Pillai said the people who had consumed more power during the lockdown may have to pay the bill amount. However, the additional amounts paid by those consumers whose houses remained shut during the lockdown period will be adjusted in the subsequent bill, he said.
As meter reading was not possible during the lockdown period, the KSEB reportedly prepared the bill for March-April by calculating the average consumption during the last six months. Though the billing cycle is 60 days, it was stretched to 65-70 days due to the lockdown restrictions. In some cases, the slab changed due to this delay. More than a lakh consumers have lodged complaints with KSEB, but Pillai said the board has not done anything wrong.
“Neither the board nor the consumer had done anything wrong. We’ve already told this before the High Court. KSEB could not take the monthly/bi-monthly reading during the lockdown. Had we taken the meter reading as per our normal schedule, the cash flow would have been huge. So, it is better for the KSEB as well as the consumers to pay the average charges based on the power consumption for the four months,” said Pillai.