MUMBAI, NOV 24: A hearing before the state electricity regulatory commission today revealed that the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) has, on three occasions in the past six months, paid more money to Enron's Dabhol Power Company than the rate-limit set by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC).In the months of June, September and October, MSEB paid Enron more than the Rs 3.50-per-unit ceiling set by the commission for variable charges. This has resulted in MSEB also breaching the final tariff (fixed charges plus variable charges) limit of Rs 5.68 per unit set by MERC.While in June and September MSEB paid Rs 3.51, that is .01 paisa more, in October, the variable charges worked out to Rs 3.72 - 22 paise per unit more than the limit set by MERC. For October alone, when MSEB bought a total of 267.8 million units, it ended up paying nearly Rs 5.9 crore more to Enron than envisaged by the commission.This fact came to light during the hearing that took place on Friday on a petition filed by activist S R Paranjpe before the commission and went uncontested by MSEB. In its reply MSEB has said that variable cost shot up because of the dollar and brent fluctuations.But this is not the only breach of the MERC ruling. The commission had ruled in April that the MSEB should not buy more than 3044 million units from Dabhol in one year (ending March 31, 2001). But MSEB has already bought 1844.5 million units till October and is clearly set to breach this order also.In money terms, the commission had said MSEB could buy power up to Rs 1,729 crore till March 2001 but MSEB has already purchased Rs 1,200 crore worth power. This implies that the MSEB has to drastically reduce the intake if it wants to avoid violating the MERC order.Meanwhile, the board officials today came under severe criticism by the Commission for not submitting valid affidavits for the petition, following which they were directed to submit fresh affidavits duly signed by the concerned person or by the board chairman. The board had also failed to furnish rejoinders to petitioners, which is mandatory before the hearing process.
