Power
States - Tamil Nadu
High-tension users must pay support charges: Court

Several industrial units in their writ petitions challenged the decision of EB in making demand for outage charges as it was without jurisdiction

Our Legal Correspondent

Chennai, Dec. 11

Industries in Tamil Nadu enjoying high-tension power supply from the State electricity board are liable to pay demand of grid support/outage charges, the Madras High Court has ruled.

“It is not as if the TN Electricity Regulatory Commission has decided outage demand issue without ground reality. In fact, it has given huge concessions to captive generating plants which will in turn benefit its consumers like the petitioners”, the Court held.

Several industries such as the Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, and Brakes India Ltd., Chennai, and Lakshmi Mills Co Ltd., Coimbatore, in their writ petitions, challenged the decision of EB in making demand for outage charges as it was without jurisdiction. Dismissing the petitions, Mr Justice K. Chandru ruled that the theory of hardship or unreasonableness claimed by petitioners, could not be countenanced by this Court.

According to the petitioners, a reading of the tariff policy, which had been in force from March 16, 2003 would reveal that payment of outages of generator supplying to the consumer on open access and payment of consumption charges would arise only when standby arrangements were required to be provided by the licensee. Payment of outage charges or grid availability charges would not arise in case open access customer was already a consumer of the EB. The petitioners had admitted that one captive power generator unit (Cauvery Gas Pipes) which had filed a petition before the Regulatory Commission challenging the said levy as unauthorised. But the petition had been rejected.

The EB submitted that the petitioners were aware of the regulations of the Regulatory Commission, and the board's levy was fully in consonance with those regulations. In case of outages of generator supplying to a consumer on open access, standby arrangements should be provided by licensee to meet the demand of open access beneficiary on payment of consumption charges, which included equated demand charges applicable to HT tariff III and rate presently worked out to Rs 6.2181 paise per unit.

The Advocate-General contended that the submissions of petitioners were against the order of the Regulatory Commission.

The terms and conditions for supply of power to HT units had already been reduced in the form of an agreement. The petitioners could not get over the terms of the agreement.

The Judge held that so long as the terms and conditions by which the petitioners were bound and the stand of the EB had been approved by the Regulatory Commission, the petitioners could not claim any unreasonableness on the EB's demand. No case was made out to grant relief prayed by the petitioners. All the writ petitions would stand dismissed.