If you live in an area that doesn’t steal electricity — or otherwise extract concessions—you will pay a lower bill. This is the carrot-and-stick interim order that the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) passed last week to bring down transmission and distribution losses, often an euphemism to paper over stolen and thus unpaid electricity. It also includes concessions handed out to farmers and select industries like powerlooms.The Commission exempted consumers in circles that have recorded losses lower than 26.87 per cent from paying the 30 paise per unit transmission, distribution charges from January 1, 2003 to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB). The charges were levied by the commission last year to help the board.T&D losses spiralled alarmingly from 31.87 per cent for the 1999-2000 financial year to 39.49 per cent in 2000-01. The order points out that the moment other circles with T&D losses above 26.87 per cent and below 39.49 per cent reach below the magic level, they will cease paying T & D loss charge. Circles in this category: Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Nashik, Pune, Satara.This condition will stay even if the T&D loss for any subsequent period is recorded higher than 26.87 per cent. It will be MSEB’s responsibility to ensure that T&D losses don’t slip, the commission said. Of course, there are places that are much worse than these. ‘‘Absolutely unacceptable,’’ is what the commission said about T&D losses of above 50 per cent in circles like Bhiwandi (58.5), Beed (53.3), Akola (50.6). The commission warned MSEB ‘‘to put in concentrated efforts to bring down the loss level, else, the commission may be compelled to take drastic punitive action.’’The order was passed on January 9, 2003, after MSEB could not submit its tariff proposals for the financial year 2003-2004 by December end, 2002. Differences had cropped up with consumer representatives over the methodology to evaluate T&D losses in the commission’s previous meetings. According to Ashok Pendse of the Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (Mumbai Consumer Forum), since MSEB could not recover its losses from its employees, they would be passed on to consumers. In MERC’s meeting on December 30, 2002 Pendse pointed out that only four zones viz, Konkan, Pune, Nagpur (urban) and Kalyan had shown acceptable improvement from January to September 2002. ‘If these zones could reduce losses, why is MSEB not concentrating its efforts for reducing losses in areas like Kolhapur and Nashik which consume nearly 37 per cent of the total consumption,’’ Pendse asked. ‘‘The best way therefore, to ensure improvement in performance is to start charging differential T & D loss charge based on losses of that zone/circle,’’ said Girish Sant of Prayas.
