KSEB told to scrap fuel surcharge

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The April order had allowed KSEB to impose the surcharge for a period of six months to recover additional costs of Rs 190 crore on fuel, incurred during the previous years.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our Bureau

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug. 8

The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission has ordered that Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) withdraw, effective from September 1, the fuel surcharge of 25 paise a unit levied from consumers.

There is no justification to continue the surcharge “in the absence of proper implementation of an enabling order of April 5, 2010,” it said in its order on Saturday.

Actual accounts

The Commission said that the exact revenue requirements to meet the additional cost cannot be assessed in the absence of filing of actual accounts of the Board.

The accounts for the year 2007-08 and 2008-09 are not yet provided in which substantial surpluses are said to be available.

The April order had allowed KSEB to impose the surcharge for a period of six months to recover additional costs of Rs 190 crore on fuel, incurred during the previous years.

KSEB should in turn keep the Commission posted as and when the amount is recovered, upon which the Commission shall terminate the collection of fuel surcharge.

The board would also indicate the rate of surcharge and the total amount of surcharge separately in the bills issued to the consumers.

Serious lapses

But, acting on specific complaints to the contrary, the Commission found “serious lapses” by KSEB in implementing the order.

The Commission noted that after issuing instructions to the field office, the KSEB did not bother to see whether they were actually being implemented in a proper manner. Even after four months of implementation, no details on the collection of surcharge have been furnished.

The Commission cannot be a mute spectator to flouting of its directions and orders as well as the clear provisions of the relevant Act.

It also referred to the 13 {+t} {+h} report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy, which said that important details like cost of electricity and subsidy given to the consumers thereon should be clearly mentioned in the bills.

KSEB Submission

On its part, the Board contended it was collecting and compiling the details of surcharge from the field offices on a monthly basis.

Since major portion of the consumers are billed on a bimonthly basis, the surcharge from June 2010 would alone give the true picture.

Considering the billing pattern, the board said, it would take even up to November or December 2010 to get the complete details on the surcharge collected.

It proceeded to give an undertaking that the surcharge collected till June would be reported by August 10.