A hearing was held by the Meghalaya State Electricity Regulatory Commission (MSERC) on Friday over the favourable power tariffs offered to the Byrnihat Industries Association (BIA), which mean that these companies pay a lower rate per unit of electricity than the general public.
The next hearing has been fixed for August 16.
The favourable tariffs have caused much controversy and in December last year several Meghalaya Energy Corporation Ltd (MeECL) employees’ associations had filed a petition with the MSERC challenging the special tariff.
The petitioners highlighted “many loopholes on how the tariff to the industries was arrived at” and stressed that such an arrangement will further weaken the revenue returns to the already financially stressed MeECL.
The utility’s employees argued against their employer offering power at such a low rate that this could be the only case in India “where the general public pays more than industries”. Under the deal, the BIA has to pay a flat rate of Rs 4.9 per unit without any fixed charges, the petition says, whereas all other categories of consumers pay a fixed charge on top of their energy usage bill.
