MUMBAI, May 29: The proposal of Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) to hike power tariff by an average of 12.92 percent effective from June 1, 1998 is expected to raise the power cost to industrial consumers in the region of 30 to 40 per cent. Alarmed by the serious implications of the proposed tariff hike on the health of industries, Indian Merchants' Chamber (IMC) has in a statement said that the step would be counter productive.Instead of increasing the MSEB's revenues, the proposed tariff hike would reduce them sharply as the increased burden could be passed on to the consumer and would have to be borne entirely by the industries.
"If the tariff has to be hiked at any cost, wait at least till the recesssionary trends are reversed," the chamber president Y P Trivedi said in a statement here today.
The chamber also sought the intervention of the chief minister in restraining MSEB from going ahead with the proposal. The incidence of tariff should be uniformly distributed among all consumers inMaharashtra and not be loaded disproportionatley on the industry, he suggested. "Such hikes are best effected only in conjunction with improvement in the MSEB's operational efficiency, reduction in transmission and distribution losses, better management and improvement in the quality of power," he said.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
