The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport (BEST) committee meeting saw a discussion on October electricity bills received by consumers in the island city that were almost three times the usual amount.
The spike in October bills angered consumers to the extent that some of them stormed the Tardeo office last week. Committee member Ravi Raja said this has been happening repeatedly and BEST needs to get its act together in terms of power supply. “Firstly in the month of August, the servers failed and we were sent an average power bill and then in the next month, people got the shock of their life after seeing a bill of Rs 700 shoot up to Rs 2,100,” said Mr Raja.
BEST general manager Jagdish Patil said there are three to four reasons behind the October power bills being so high, one of them being that the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) has removed the Fuel Adjustment Cost (FAC) facility where Rs 1 per unit of electricity consumption was waived off from a consumer’s bill. Under FAC, if a consumer consumed 300 units and received a bill of Rs 1,000, he would have to pay only Rs 700.
“Along with the FAC being taken away from consumers, there has been a tariff revision also implemented from October. This new tariff has increased bills of residential consumers by 17 to 19 per cent and commercial consumers by around 21 per cent,” said Mr Patil.Further, the sweltering heat end of September and October forced consumers to use air conditioners or additional fans/table fans leading to increased electricity usage. “All three factors plus electricity duty led to high electricity bills in October,” said Mr Patil.
