Patna, June 18: Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) today gave yet another shocker to power consumers in the form of fuel surcharge. This comes close on the heels of the average hike of 19 per cent in electricity tariff rate.

The board has decided to impose a fuel surcharge of Rs 1.35 per unit for two months, March and April 2011, to be paid by consumers in two instalments. The surcharge, which would affect around 23 lakh electricity consumers across the state, has been imposed on all categories of consumers except for BPL families, farmers, Kutir Jyoti.

“The board has imposed fuel surcharge of Rs 1.35 per unit for March and April which will be realised in the bills of June and July. The surcharge has been imposed owing to the fact that NTPC has charged increased rate for the sale of electricity on account of costly imported coal from the board,” BSEB spokesman H.R. Pandey told The Telegraph.

Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (Berc), which gave its nod to increase an average of 19 per cent in electricity tariff rate on June 1 while hearing the board’s plea for making a hike of 65 to 100 per cent, said in its tariff order of 2011-12 that the board would not impose fuel surcharge with retrospective effect. If the board wants to impose such surcharge, it can implement the same for current bills and not from back date.

In December 2010, BSEB had imposed a surcharge of 69 paise per unit for nine months with retrospective effect from January 2009 to September 2009 on the same ground that NTPC had hiked the rate owing to the increase in coal prices, especially the imported variety, a key component in running thermal plant.

This is the fifth straight time that power consumers have to face a hike in their electricity bills. Within a span of seven months, the consumers had to bear the brunt of higher electricity bills either on account of fuel surcharge or a nominal tariff hike.

Besides getting Berc’s nod to increase 19 per cent in electricity tariff on current year’s petition, BSEB had also filed a tariff petition in July 2010 for the financial year 2010-11, seeking a hike of about 20 to 25 per cent in the tariff rate across the board but Berc made a nominal increase of 5 paise per unit last December.

BSEB again in March this year imposed a fuel surcharge of 99 paise per unit for December 2010, January and February 2011, which the consumers were to pay in three equal instalments.

After hearing the information of surcharge being levied on consumers within 20 days of announcement of new tariff rate, Ravishanker Mishra, a resident of East Patel Nagar near Gandhi statue, said: “It is a complete shocker for us as the new tariff rate was barely announced a fortnight ago and now the surcharge. This is arbitrary and unjust. There must be some mechanism which could put a brake on the board’s unilateral and autocratic style of functioning.”

Rajiv Ranjan Pandey, a resident of Punaichak, said: “We are still paying instalment of surcharge imposed by BSEB on two earlier occasions. The irregular power supply in the city is already draining residents as they had to spend extra for getting the facility of uninterrupted power supply through gensets and inverters.”

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) eastern region vice-chairman and chief executive officer of Shakti Sudha, Satyajit Singh, said: “Surcharge is negative for industry. It will badly hit small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the most and hence, the industry department should bear the SMEs’ burden. Otherwise, these industries cannot survive for long. If the board wants more revenue, it can do so by increasing tariff but should not impose surcharge at all.”