CESU charges revised tariff even for March

BHUBANESWAR: Electricity consumers of the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) beware! You have been charged tariff at the revised rate even for part of your electricity consumption for March. As per the new tariff order of the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) for 2012-13, the revised the power tariff is effective from April 1. However, the Central utility has charged revised tariff from March violating the tariff order of the regulatory commission. Since the billing cycle of CESU varies from place to place, the regulator has ordered to collect tariff at old rate from the consumers who are billed on or before April 15. Those consumers are billed after April 16 will pay at the revised rate. “In order to simplify the procedure, we stipulate that if the metering and billing date falls within April 15, 2012 (including 15th), the bill of the consumers will be prepared as per pre-revised rate i.e. tariff applicable for 2011-12,” the OERC order said. If the billing and metering date falls on or after April 16, the bill will be prepared at the revised tariff for the current financial year, the commission said. The tariff order of the OERC is not acceptable to consumers who are  affected due to the billing cycle of CESU. Several consumers raised objection to the discriminatory billing cycle and the OERC order as well. After receiving several complaints, the CESU authority took up the issue with OERC on Tuesday. Chairman of the utility BC Jena told the commission that the new tariff should be made effective from April 1 to give parity to all the consumers. Accordingly, CESU has decided to collect the new tariff from all the consumers with effect from April 1 irrespective of the billing cycle. The utility will have to take a massive exercise in revising the monthly electricity bill of its domestic consumers for May. With a consumer base of over 12 lakh, the company has already generated and issued bills to more than 11 lakh consumers. The consumers have been advised to pay their bill as per the bill issued and the differential amount of tariff will be adjusted in May bill.