Provisions regarding other charges levied along with electricity consumption bill

- Lokabhimukha Guidance - H.S. Patel IAS (Retd.)

- Regulatory Commission has the authority to decide the Tariff

The prevalence of electricity consumption has increased so much that no citizen of the country or the world lives without some form of electrical equipment. Electricity is also an important part of economic/commercial affairs. There are three important factors in the electricity sector. Power production (Generation), Power transmission (Transmission) Power distribution (Distribution) These three parts are dependent on each other and all things are related to the commercial principle. We as consumers consume / use the value chain of electricity. Considered as power distribution. And so the electricity consumption bill is given by the utility. It has to be paid as a customer. Therefore, from the community of readers and some officials, I am elaborating in the broad interest of electricity consumers by asking to clarify that different charges are collected by electricity companies along with electricity bills and electricity bills are collected based on the unit of electricity consumption.

First of all, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) has the authority to determine the electricity tariff charged from different categories of electricity consumers. According to the Electricity Act, each state has been told to form a regulatory commission to determine the electricity tariff. The commission is functioning according to that and every year the state commission decides the annual electricity tariff based on the proposal of the utility i.e. electricity distribution companies, which is known as 'Tariff Order'. Earlier the formation of the regulatory commission. Earlier the powers to fix electricity rates were vested with the state governments. Those who used to decide on a regular basis by considering political factors instead of the principle of 'Cost to Serve', that is, the power sector was making losses on a large scale, so even today some states other than Gujarat are burdened with large financial losses, there are many reasons behind this which need to be understood differently. Thus, the Electricity Act-2003 has been enacted in place of the old Electricity Act of 1910, in which the electricity sector remains viable and electricity is supplied at a reasonable rate in the interest of the consumers, along with eliminating monopoly in the electricity sector, bringing a competitive environment and providing quality, reliable and affordable electricity to the consumers in a non-political manner. is the objective. But due to many factors electricity can be supplied in reliable form. But reasonable rate is not provided with Affordable Rates, there are Technical / Commercial factors behind it can be analyzed differently.

The main objective of this article is to inform the customers that different charges are collected from the customers along with the energy bill. As stated, the power of the utility to levy the electricity tariff or the charges levied thereon is voluntary (Suomoto) or arbitrarily except with the approval of the Regulatory Commission i.e. every utility requires an annual revenue projection tariff including the charges which is compulsorily submitted to the Regulatory Commission every year. The proposal has to be submitted by each utility i.e. the electricity distribution companies in the form of Rationalization of Tariff as per the National Tariff Policy provided in the Electricity Act and on this the commission invited objection suggestions from the customers and all the stakeholders and held a hearing. Then the tariff order i.e. the charges leviable along with the electricity tariff is sanctioned. Customer vigilance is required in this regard. Apart from the amount payable in that electricity bill, most of the consumers do not even bother to look at the amount under other charges mentioned in the bill, so actually when the public hearing on the tariff is held before the commission, rational submissions should be made regarding the electricity tariff proposal.

Based on the load of each consumer, the category of consumer is decided, in which the category of LT and HT consumers (Low Tension / High Tension) is decided. Based on the electricity load of the customer, electricity meters are installed by the electricity distribution company for recording the electricity consumption and monthly / bi-monthly electricity bills are given as per the rules of each company. As approved by the commission in the electricity bill, the amount of electricity bill is shown as 'Energy Bill' based on the unit of electricity consumption as per the electricity consumption slab. This mainly has RGP and Non RGP categories as approved by the commission. RGP category i.e. residential category up to 50 units with separate tariff for rural and urban areas. The slabs of which have different rates from 50 to 100 - 100 to 250. 50 to 100 - 100 and above 200 units in Torrent area have the same unit rate as well as Non RGP which includes commercial and industrial category customers. In which there is power rate according to the slab above 10 KW. Fixed charges of single phase and three-phase are different in this current. Thus the horsepower and meter tariffs of streetlight and agriculture are different. These are approved by the Energy Charges i.e. Consumption Based Residential, Commercial and Industrial Tariff Commission and billed to consumers accordingly.