Vidyut Bhavan in Patna

Patna, June 1: The hike in power tariff has not gone down well with the masses. Be it domestic or commercial consumers, everyone has been left fuming.

“As if the petrol price hike was not enough, people will now have to shell out more for enhanced electricity rates,” said Sumita Singh, a college teacher residing on Boring Canal Road.

She said irregular power supply in the city was already draining residents as they had to spend extra for getting uninterrupted power supply through gensets and inverters. “The quality of service should have been improved before hiking the tariff,” she added.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) regional vice-chairman Satyajit Singh was not complaining about the rates but he too wants uninterrupted power supply for justifying the hike. “No one would complain if this government ensures round-the-clock power supply. Sadly, this aspect is being ignored and more attention is being paid for charging more from the consumers for very poor service.”

Trader Roshan Kapur, the co-owner of one of the oldest grocery shops in the city, is worried because the enhanced electricity bill would eat into his profits. “A trader cannot ask its customers to pay more than the maximum retail price as he has to pay an enhanced electricity bill. Moreover, he cannot cut the power consumption on ACs and other facilities without which customers would not turn up,” he said. Kapur had a suggestion for the government: “Instead of steep hike, the government should opt for piecemeal increase so that consumers don’t feel the pinch.”

Bihar industrialists too are surprised over the move. “BSEB should take steps to reduce transmission and distribution loss to make up for its losses. There can be no logic in effecting tariff hike every six months,” said Bihar Industries Association vice-president Subhash K. Patwari. He said such steps would have cascading effect and products would get costlier as such loads are usually passed on to customers.

Apart from people cutting across different sections, political parties too joined the criticism bandwagon terming the hike anti-people. “The worst affected lot would be farmers who are already reeling under the impact of the high price of diesel,” said CPI state unit secretary Badri Narayan Lal. RJD claimed that the tariff hike was like rubbing salt into people’s wounds. “The real face of the Nitish government stands exposed. It first effected a price hike immediately after the Assembly election and now within six months, it wants to take out more money from people’s pockets,” said RJD secretary general Ram Kripal Yadav.

Several organisations now plan to stage protest march across the state tomorrow to protest the tariff hike. Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission has approved an average increase of 19 per cent in electricity tariff across the board against a proposal to increase overall tariff rate between 65 per cent and 100 per cent.