Electricity Dept staff lose ‘power’

Tribune News Service

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Chandigarh, April 30

The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has put an end to providing free power to employees of the Electricity Department at the cost of consumers. It said that if it was necessary to provide them with free power, then the amount should be provided by the government and the same could not be recovered from tariff.

The JERC has passed the order after some residents raised an objection over the proposal to distribute free electricity worth Rs 90 lakh to the employees of the department. The Electricity Department had proposed free power concession to its employees as per the already adopted circular of the PSEB dated January 7, 2011 and the cost to be incurred on account of free electricity is proposed to be merged with the employee cost in its petition before the JERC .

While passing the order, the Commission said as per the provisions of the Electricity Act 2003 and regulations framed here under, the utility had to charge the tariff approved by the Commission.

Quoting Section 65 (Provision of subsidy by the state government), the Commission said, “If the state government requires the grant of any subsidy to any consumer or class of consumers in the tariff determined by the state commission under Section 62, the state government shall, notwithstanding any direction which may be given under Section 108, pay in advance and in such a manner as may be specified, the amount to compensate the person affected by the grant of subsidy in a manner the state commission may direct, as a condition for the licence or any other person concerned to implement the subsidy provided for by the state government”.

Accordingly, the amount applicable for the provision of free electricity to the employees as per the government circular needs to be provided by the government only and the same cannot be recovered from tariff.  Gopal  Dutt Joshi, general secretary, UT Powermen  Union, said the employees’ pay and allowances were fixed on the pattern of the PSEB  and  they should be continued. He said it was wrong to include the concessional electricity as part of the employees cost.