Consumers demand affordable tariff petitions in Kannada from KERC 

All electricity supply companies submit their tariff proposals to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission at the beginning of the New Year.
| Photo Credit: File photo

The beginning of a New Year also marks the season of electricity tariff revision in Karnataka as all the electricity supply companies (Escoms) submit their tariff proposals to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC), which then makes the applications public before revising the tariff. While this is supposed to help consumers file their objections against the proposed tariff, accessibility and language issues have made it difficult for them. 

Once the news about the tariff proposal is published in newspapers and on public domain, consumers get 30 days’ time to file their objections. But many allege that there is a delay in getting tariff proposal documents, which leads to consumers losing out on time to respond. There is also the fact that the tariff proposal document is available only in English and full of jargon leading to many not understanding the details of the document, especially in districts outside Bengaluru. 

Hegde Kadekodi is a consumer from Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district. “Let us start with this year’s tariff petition of Hescom. It is 414-pages long and even those with electrical engineering degrees cannot understand the technical jargon. It will be useful if they can at least provide the summary of the petition in simple Kannada in around 10 pages. In Maharashtra, the documents are also provided in Marathi, but our electricity sector has conveniently forgotten Kannada,” he lamented.  

Consumers also say that physical copies of the documents are often expensive, and that they are only available in corporate offices. Kiran (name changed), a consumer from Bengaluru, said: “The price of the documents is generally ₹400- ₹500. Additionally, they are not available in sub-division offices, and we have to go to the corporate office of Bescom. Why should a common citizen spend so much money to exercise their rights?” “Owing to these reasons, no one comes to tariff petition hearings anymore. A few years ago, hundreds of people, including farmer leaders and politicians, used to attend the hearings.” 

When asked about the issues, KERC officials said to give easy access to everyone, the tariff petition documents are now uploaded on the websites of Escoms and KERC. “It is available in the public domain and anyone can access it and file objections. As for non-availability of the petition documents in Kannada, I will instruct the officials to make it available in Kannada,” said P. Ravikumar, chairman, KERC. 

However, consumers said that with the petition documents being hundreds of pages long, it is not possible to peruse it digitally. “Printing them will be expensive. To read and understand it digitally, we have to spend hours in front of the computer and these methods are not feasible,” Mr. Kadekodi said.  

Meanwhile, the Kannada Development Authority said that it will take cognisance of the matter. “While we regularly check the implementation and usage of Kannada in various government departments, this issue had not come to our notice. I will get the tariff petition documents, study them, and write to the respective officials asking for an explanation of why they are only issued in English,” said Purshottama Bilimale, president of the authority.