Citizens who are already reeling under the burden of price rise would this month be slapped with heavy electricity bills. This month’s electricity bill would be almost 35 per cent more than the earlier tariff. The reason behind this is the lethargy of the Maharahstra State Electricity Distribution Company. The MSEDCL despite the elaborate equipment at its disposal failed to update the recent hike in power tariff.
It may be recalled that the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) had on August 17 had hiked the electricity tariff by 16.5 per cent. This hike was to be added in bill for the month of September. But MSEDCL failed to update the new tariff in their system even though they had one month’s time to do so. The brunt of this would now be borne by people of the State. MSEDCL would recover the increased tariff for August and September. This would come up to a hike of about 33 per cent. Along with the hike in power tariff Fuel Adjustment Charges and electricity charges would also go up. Apart from that it has been estimated that the usage of electricity is usually higher in these months due to festivals. Higher consumption would also rise the slab of billing further crushing people under a massive burden of the bill. The tariff charged for consumption between 100 to 200 units is lower than the tariff charged for consumption between 200 to 300 units.
The affect of almost 35 per cent increase would be the worst on consumers of Nagpur because people of the city are also having to pay 9 paise per unit for the expenses borne by MSEDCL for removing electricity polls. Even this amount was not added in the bill of September. Now people would have to pay 18 per cent in this months bill.
