In absence of SERC nod, PDD raises power bills

The Power Development Department (PDD) is raising the tariff bills in the absence of a nod from State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) as it remains headless.
The SERC remains completely defunct and some of the civil society members are arguing that the bills are being raised by the PDD “illegally.” They contend that the PDD has no “legal authority” to raise bills or receive payments. The SERC is defunct since December 2016 after its chairman Basharat Dar demitted office. The SERC website notes that all its members posts and that of secretary are vacant. Anil Gupta, secretary SERC was earlier posted in the office of Financial Commissioner, Revenue.
Civil society members and the PDD officials said that the bills raised and payments received by the PDD are “illegal and unauthorized” as the tariff approved by SERC was valid only up to October 2017.
“The SERC is the only regulator and authority in J&K to issue and approve tariff for any type of consumer whether it is domestic or commercial. The government doesn’t have any authority to fix the tariff for the consumer. The tariff approved by SERC was valid till October 2017. After that all bills raised and revenue collected by PDD is illegal,” said civil society member and former president of Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FCIK) Shakeel Qalander.
Qalander said that people “can approach the court and get the process of un authorized issuing of bills stopped.”
“All the bills in a way we can say are illegally raised by PDD,” a former member of SERC said.
According to the constitution of SERC, one of the tasks entrusted to the Commission is to approve tariff for domestics, commercial and industrial consumers.
The tariff is approved in response to the petition by the PDD to the SERC and the department includes all the cost and other infrastructural charges to seek tariff revision. The tariff is approved after put out in the public domain.
“The SERC invites all shades of people like civil society, traders and other bodies to finalise the rates at the minimum possible rate,” said Qalander. “ It is after this that the SERC analyses and approves the tariff, he added.
“Once the tariff is approved by the SERC, the PDD raises the bills accordingly,” said Hidayatulla, an engineer in PDD.
The tariff is approved by SERC for all the domestic, commercial and industrial consumers, he said.
A top official in PDD, who wished not be named, said that a consumer can even decline to pay bills “citing illegality.”
“The tariff was approved till October 2017 and since then there has been no meeting of SERC,” he said.
PDD Chief Engineer Shahnaz Goni said the bills are raised as per the approval of SERC. “We have not raised the tariff rates for the last two years.”
Goni said while she will examine the legality of the bills, “people should have no qualms about being charged on old rates.”