WBERC in balancing act

The West Bengal Regulatory Commission (WBERC) has tried to do a balancing act by trying to keep every category of consumer happy while abiding by the Electricity Act 2003, which directed reduction of subsidy over the next four years.

The Commission released its tariff for 2004-05 today. It retained tariff structure for urban domestic consumers in the lower rung on one hand while asking commercial consumers to pay less too. For larger domestic consumers, the rates have in fact declined.

Consumers were till date paying an excess of 52 paise per units under the interim orders passed by the Commission. This has now been regularised.

The total effect on consumers if the interim orders were taken into consideration resulted in decline in tariff for almost all categories.

WBERC in its tariff order has also said, "It is open to the state government to grant any subsidy to any consumer or any class of consumers in the tariff determined by the Commission."

The state government in this case will have to pay the subsidy in advance.

The tariff order which was released today said urban commercial consumers consuming less than 180 units will pay the same amount at Rs 2.92 per kwh, while consumers in the 300 unit category will have to pay a marginal reduced amount of Rs 4.05 per unit against Rs 4.12 now being paid by them.

Consumers consuming an additional 150 units will have to pay Rs 4.25 against Rs 4.32 being paid by them.

Users consuming upto 450 units more will now have to shell out a reduced amount of Rs4.65 per units against Rs 4.72.

The next 450 category, according to the order will have to pay Rs 4.65 against Rs 4.72, while the next 1500 above category will now have to pay Rs 4.65 against Rs 4.72.

Urban domestic consumers consuming more than 300 units will have to pay increased amounts. Those consuming less than 300 units will not see any change in their electricity bill.

Consumers in the category 300 units to 450 units will have to pay a marginal 2 paise less at Rs3.2 now, while the next slab of 450 units will attract a reduced rate of Rs 3.39 per unit against Rs 3.42 earlier.

The next 150 slab will now attract a rate of Rs 5.49 against Rs 5.52 being paid by them. For the next 1,500 unit slab they will have to cough up Rs 4.29 against Rs 4.32 being paid by them. The rates for domestic rural category has been more or less on the same line.