By IANS,
Mumbai : The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) Wednesday stayed its June order permitting Reliance Infrastructure to hike power tariff charges for various categories of domestic and commercial users.
The order passed by MERC panel comprising chairman V.P. Raja and members A. Velayutham and S.B. Kulkarni, will provide relief to the 2.7 million consumers of Reliance Infra, who will now pay their bills at the old rates till further orders.
The ruling came Wednesday evening in a matter filed by the Maharashtra government directing MERC to probe whether Reliance Infra had imposed any avoidable burden on consumers.
The state move, in the form of a letter by Energy Minister Sunil Tatkare, came in the wake of agitations by consumers and political parties against the power tariff hike last month.
Tatkare had directed MERC to take appropriate steps relating to the government’s policy with 15 days to protect consumers’ interest in a monopoly situation and to ensure that no unreasonable and unjustified bills were collected during the intervening period when the regulator’s investigation was on.
In its order Wednesday, MERC said that “since the Commission needs to undertake a detailed investigation on metering, power purchase expenses and transactions undertaken by Reliance Infra, as well as capital expenditure schemes, the tariff increase as approved by the Commission for the consumers in the earlier order on tariff hike will be stayed till the Commission issues further orders.”