Order on Rates of Monthly Minimum Charges in Compliance with T
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HARYANA ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISSION SCO 180, SECTOR 5, PANCHKULA 134109, HARYANA CASE NO. HERC/PRO – 1 OF 2001 DATES OF HEARING: 08.05.2001 09.05.2001 DATE OF ORDER: 02.07.2001 Shri V.S. Ailawadi, Chairman Shri Ramesh Chandra, Member Shri K. S. Chaube, Member In the matter of hearing in respect of rates of Monthly Minimum charges in compliance with the order dated 13.03.2001 passed by the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana in FAO No. 610 of 2001, FAO No. 696 of 2001 and FAO No. 710 of 2001 directing the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission to give opportunity of hearing to the appellants and all other persons likely to be affected. PRESENT: On behalf of the organizations at Serial No._____ Mr. D.C. Narang 1, 3, 5, 6, 11, 18, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 145, 146, 147, 148, 175 of Annexure On behalf of the organizations at Serial No.---- Mr. S. K. Huria 13, 14, 17, 20 to 23, 51, 53, 55, 70, 74, 81, 84 to 86 91, 96, 98 to 105, 107 to 113, 152, 153, 155 to 166 174, 179 of Annexure On behalf of the organizations at Serial No.--- Mr. Rajiv Chawala 114 to 120 of Annexure Page 1 of 28 On behalf of the organizations at Serial No. Mr. D. K. Bhatti 62 of Annexure On behalf of the organizations at Serial No. Mr. S.C. Gupta 64 of Annexure On behalf of the organizations at Serial No. Mr. Parmesh Bindal 65 of Annexure On behalf of the organizations at Serial No. Mr. Vinod Gupta 61 of Annexure Advocate On behalf of the organizations at Serial No. Mr. Harpawan Kumar 142 of Annexure Advocate On behalf of the Yamunanagar – Jagadhri Mr. K. D. Sehgal Chamber of Commerce and Industry Yamunanagar Advocate On behalf of Faridabad Small Scale Industry Mr. S. K. Srivastva On behalf of M/s Lagu Kuter Udyog Sangh, Mr. Ram Phal Haryana , Chakker Road, Kath Mandi, Jind On behalf of M/s Panchkula Hi-Tech Alloys Limited, Mr. D. P. Sharma Plot No. 23, Phase II, Industrial Area, Panchkula On behalf of M/s The Haryana Chamber of Mr. C. B. Goel Commerce & Industry, 239, Industrial Area, Phase I, Panchkula On behalf of Haryana Chamber of Commerce Mr. Rajneesh Kumar & Industry, Kurukeshatra On behalf of J. C. Small Scale Industry Association Mr. S. S. Wallah Jawahar Colony, NIT, Faridabad On behalf of Small Scale Aluminium Utensils Mr. Satish Jain Manufacturing Association, Jagahdri On behalf of The Jagadhri Metal Manufacturers & Mr. S. L. Batra Suppliers Association, Khera Bazar, Jagadhri (Haryana) On behalf of M/s RMS Ceramics Pvt. Ltd., # 4, Mr. S.C. Dave Sector 8, Panchkukla On behalf of Laghu Udyot Bharti, Panchkula Mr. R. K. Bhardwaj On behalf of HVPNL Mr. Amit Kapoor Advocate Page 2 of 28 BRIEF HISTORY 1. Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (hereinafter referred as “the Commission”) was established on August 17, 1998 under the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Reform Act 1997 (hereafter referred as the ‘Reform Act’). The State Government unbundled the erstwhile Haryana State Electricity Board (HSEB) in August 1998 into separate functional entities, viz. Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) for generation of power and Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (HVPNL) for conduct of transmission and supply of electricity business in the State. 2. On 4th February 1999, licences for conducting Transmission and Bulk Supply and Distribution and Retail Supply business were issued to Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (HVPN) in terms of the powers vested with the Commission under Section 15 of the Reform Act. 3. As per the terms of the licence condition No. 21.1 for Transmission and Bulk supply and the licence condition No. 22.2 for Distribution and Retail supply, the licensee, HVPNL was required to file its Annual Revenue Requirement for financial year 2000-01 by the end of December 1999. Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (HVPNL) filed its Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) for 2000-01 on 31st December 1999, which was subsequently revised on Commission’s directions and HVPNL submitted its modified ARR for 2000-01 and Tariff applications for D&RS business. 4. The Commission’s public hearings on Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) for the 2000-01 and Tariff for D&RS business were held on, 27th September. 19th & 20th October and on 2nd and 3rd November 2000. During the public hearing, the Commission heard the submissions made by the respondents and reply by the licensee. In terms of the powers vested in the Commission under section 26(7) read with section 11 of the Reform Act, the Commission passed the Tariff Order on 22.12.2000. In its order, the Commission revised tariff Page 3 of 28 for all categories of consumers. The Commission also rationalised Monthly Minimum Charges (MMC) for various categories of consumers. 5. The following three petitions were filed with the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab & Haryana against the revision of minimum monthly charges for LT and HT industrial consumers in the Commission’s Tariff Order dated 22nd Dec. 2000. 1. M/s Kaithal Rice & General Mills & others (FAO No. 610/2001) 2. M/s Hindustan Wires Ltd. (FAO No. 696/2001) 3. M/s Molly Tools & others (FAO No. 710/2001) The Hon’ble High Court disposed off the above three appeals and issued the following direction to the Commission in its order dated 13th March 2001, “……these appeals are disposed of with a direction to the commission to give notice of the proposed revision in minimum monthly charges within a period of three weeks from today in two newspapers giving two weeks time so as to enable the appellants and all other persons likely to be affected to file their objections along with other documents in support of their submissions. One week’s time would be given to the respondents to file rejoinder to the objections. Thereafter, the commission shall hold hearing on a date mentioned in the public notice and continue to hold hearings till they are finally concluded. No adjournment of any sort shall be given. In case the enhanced minimum monthly charges are reduced, the amount paid in excess by the appellants or other LT and HT consumers, shall be adjusted in the ensuing bills.” BRIEF SUMMARY OF OBJECTIONS RAISED. 6. As per the Hon’ble High Court’s order, the commission issued public notices in three national newspapers for holding public hearing on 8th & 9th May at Red Bishop, Panchkula. The petitioners were asked to file their written comments by 12th April 2001. The Commission received in all Page 4 of 28 written objections from 368 petitioners. Out of these, only 180 were filed as per the procedure prescribed by the Commission in its Conduct of Business Regulations, 1998. 7. The Commission heard the views of the petitioners and the reply of HVPNL during the public hearings held on 8th and 9th May 2001 at Panchkula. Arguments were advanced by the above noted representatives of the organizations mentioned against each of them. 8. The Commission allowed opportunity to Sh. D.R.Bansal, counsel for M/s Kaithal Rice Mills & others who were one of the petitioners in FAO No. 610/2001 before the Hon’ble High Court of Punjab & Haryana to make oral submissions. The Commission noted with concern that the counsel failed to appear for making any oral arguments/oral submissions in spite of the opportunity given to him. 9. The Commission has considered all the written objections filed along with affidavits and opportunity was also given to representatives of all the petitioners to make oral submissions during public hearing. The Commission allowed persons from the public who had not filed their objections in the prescribed form or within the stipulated period to make their oral submissions. 10. The objections and various submissions made in the written objections as well as during the hearing are discussed below: a) It was contended by almost all the petitioners that the revision of MMC was made by the Commission suo-moto and that the licensee had not sought any increase in MMC in their tariff filing for the year 2000-2001. The petitioners could not raise the objections earlier since no revision in the MMC had been sought by the licensee and also adequate opportunity was not available with the public to express any views or objections on the question of revision of MMC b) An objection was raised by M/s Jindal Strips and M/s Hindustan Wires Ltd. about the jurisdiction of the Commission to go into the issue of MMC. It is contended that the MMC is not part of the tariff and the Commission’s function is confined only to the fixing of tariff and not to go in to general Page 5 of 28 conditions of supply and laying down or revising MMC, which was a function of the licensee. It was also contended by the Counsel for M/S Hindustan Wires that the MMC in actual practice acts as tax which the Commission has no jurisdiction to levy. c) It was also argued that the procedure prescribed by the Commission for taking up suo moto issue as set out in Regulations 17 and 18 of the Commission’s Conduct of Business Regulations, 1998 was not observed. It was contended that the utility had not given any basis for increase in MMC both at the time of tariff filing and even now in the reply to the petition and no data, whatsoever, has been supplied by the utility in this regard to justify increase in MMC.