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PIL on power tariff: High Court modifies its order

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Wednesday modified its March 31 interim order in which it stayed the collection of hiked power tariff bill from all electricity consumers as proposed by the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC).

Instead of vacating the interim stay in totality as pleaded by the State government, the High Court partly modified its order vacating the stay on collection of hiked power bills from commercial consumers of all categories using electricity from extra high tension (EHT), high tension (HT) and low tension (LT) lines.

“However, the interim stay on collection of hiked bills from domestic consumers using low tension (LT) lines would continue till disposal of the cases in the High Court,” said petitioner Dilip Kumar Mohapatra. Mr. Mohapatra in his capacity as secretary of Keonjhar Navanirman Parishad along with another Cuttack-based electricity consumer filed a PIL challenging the proposed power tariff hike of the OERC.

Mr. Mohapatra further clarified that the commercial consumers would pay their electricity dues as per the hiked tariff until disposal of the cases in the High Court. “In the event of tariff hike as proposed by the OERC is quashed by the High Court, the extra amount paid by the commercial consumers would be adjusted in their subsequent bills,” Mr. Mohapatra said. Earlier, the State government had made an affidavit urging the court to vacate its interim stay of March 31 in view of the OERC revising its proposed tariff hike on June 18. The Division Bench of Justices B.P. Das and B.K. Mishra, however, refused to vacate the stay and instead modified it and posted the matter to be heard again on June 27.

It may be mentioned here that the regulatory commission in March this year proposed about 40 per cent hike in power tariff for 2011-12 fiscal for all types of consumers that was scheduled to be effective from April 1, 2011.

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