At the end of the public hearing at Nagpur, the Commission told MSEDCL that load-shedding had gone up in these cities by one hour as compared to July when the petition was filed and fresh calculations were needed. This point has been repeatedly raised by TOI. The day-long public hearing was held at Vanamati Hall, VIP Road, and was chaired by MERC chief V P Raja. Members Vijay Sonawane and S B Kulkarni and Secretary Prabhakar Patil were also in the chair.
MLA Devendra Fadnavis slammed MERC for asking for a fresh petition and said this reinforced the notion that it was biased against Vidarbha. "The Commission should issue an interim order immediately," he demanded.
MSEDCL executive engineer Anil Khaparde made his presentation on the basis of the July petition. He only mentioned in passing that load-shedding and tariff had increased adding that MSEDCL had roughly calculated the additional supply charge (ASC) for all cities in different load-shedding scenarios. Later, Khaparde told the media that the calculations had already been done and instead of 57 MW the city would need 87 MW to get complete relief from power cuts. The surcharge would increase from 40 paise per unit to 59 paise per unit. However, due to increase in tariff it would come down to 56 paise.
R B Goenka of Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA) said MSEDCL's calculations were way off the mark. "MSEDCL is just taking the tariff hike into account. However, in August 2008 there were no surcharges and if the tariffs of August 2008 and 2009 are compared, then we see a rise of 20%. It has also not taken into account the rise in coal prices by 11%, increase in cost of Dabhol power, all of which would reduce the surcharge."
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