BEST power tariff brought down by five per cent

Bringing some festival cheer, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Authority (MERC) has reduced residential tariff for BEST consumers by 5 per cent and industrial by 7 per cent. The reduction in the tariff will reflect in the bill of the consumers from October 1 benefiting more than 10 lakh consumers.

While approving the tariff hike for Tata and Reliance consumers last week, the MERC has brought relief for the BEST consumers. “The residential tariff has come down to Rs 2 from Rs 3.73 for up to 100 units. For consumers using electricity upto 300 units, the tariff has come down to Rs 4.45 from Rs 7.75. Also upto 500 units, the tariff will be Rs 7.30 from the earlier Rs 10.73. For 500 and above units, the tariff will be charged Rs 9.30 down from Rs 13.33,” the order said.

The commercial tariff of Rs 10.47 has come down to Rs 7.60. The industrial tariff has come down to Rs 6.90 from Rs 8.95, the order said. Overall reduction in the tariff is 5 to 7 per cent as per the new order. The BEST has about 10 lakh consumers that will benefit from the order and their bills for the month of October will come down with the new tariff order.

Also intending to achieve uniform power tariff, the MERC has tried to keep tariff up to 100 units same for all companies.

“The Tata Power Co. Ltd (Distribution) (TPC-D) operates in most of Mumbai, including in the areas supplied by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. (RInfra-D) (in most of the Mumbai suburbs) and by BEST. The Commission has also recently revised the tariffs of RInfra-D and TPC-D. The earlier disparity between the tariffs payable by residential consumers of these three Mumbai licensees using upto 100 units per month has been considerably reduced,” the order said.