Sampat Singh charged over fuel surcharge
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 28
The opposition to the proposal by two power distribution companies to impose a fuel surcharge on consumers to the tune of over Rs 1,547 crore, has come not by an Opposition leader, but senior Congress leader and former Power Minister Prof Sampat Singh.

In a statement here today, Sampat Singh urged the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) to reject the power companies’ request to levy fuel surcharge on consumers.

Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam had recently requested the commission to allow the surcharge to recover a sum of Rs 1547.73 crore spent on buying power during 2008-09.

Sampat Singh, Congress MLA from Nalwa, said the fuel surcharge adjustment (FSA) should be exposed to public scrutiny as was the practice while deciding the annual revenue requirement (ARR).

This, he said, would ensure transparency and answerability in the power corporations.The consumer had the right to know whether the companies were buying the power judiciously or wasting their money.

He said under the Electricity Act, 2003, power tariff should be determined by the commission after public participation.

But in case of FSA, no such hearing had been held on the plea that the surcharge was being imposed to recover additional costs. The Congress leader said FSA had become a way to pass on the cost of power purchased by companies to the consumers.

Sampat Singh said had the companies been filing true ARR, there would have been no need to revise the power tariff. The companies had purchased 2,800 million units of power at an average rate of Rs 6 per unit in 2008-09, which was why fuel surcharge had been sought. Ironically, only 40 million units at an average of Rs 5 per unit had been proposed in 2009-10. This was a glaring example of the companies’ intention to suppress the costs in the ARR, he elaborated.

The Congress leader said the distribution companies’ proposal would make electricity costlier by 61 paise per unit, if total recovery was allowed in a year.