Power tariff hike : HC asks for reasons

• PIL counsel blames it on mismanagement of the authoritiesA
• Faults Regulatory Authority for burdening the common man

Hyderabad: The PIL bench of the AP High Court called for the relevant reasons in support of the enhancement of the power tariff. The bench of acting Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Vilas Afzalpurkar are dealing with the writ petition filed by Biksham, a consumer of power. Senior counsel S Ramachandra Rao in characteristic fashion pointed out that the citizen is being penalised for faults and inefficiencies of others. "Some people are power-free because of power", he complained and said that the common man was required to make up for the deficit. He said that the Regulatory Authority had gone about implementing its order even before the common man could know the reasons for the enhancement and as to how it had dealt with the various objections raised. During the course of the arguments, when a skeletal order of the APERC was placed before the court, the Acting Chief Justice wondered if that was the order. Counsel for the APERC, then pointed out that the statute entitled them to make public the reasons within a week. Ramchandra Rao promptly countered that APERC was more eager to impose the tariff than make the reason public. The bench then called for the reasons supporting the enhanced tariff and posted the case to April 8. As reported earlier, the petitioner pointed out that present pathetic situation of citizens of Andhra Pradesh is due to the mismanagement and misapplication of resources and funds by the respondents. "In 21st century power is a necessity - for the common man as a domestic user, for farmers to pump water for cultivation, to small or big industrialists to run industries. Hence planning for requirement, execution of same and supply of sufficient power to all the sectors is an essential and fundamental obligation of the State," Rao pointed out, as he squarely placed the blame at the doorstep of the authorities.