Mumbaikars brace yourselves to pay extra charges as the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL or Mahavitaran) is set to charge consumers an extra Rs 150 per month.
According to Mumbai Mirror, MSEDCL or Mahavitaran will charge an extra Rs 150 per month to cover costs of power purchased from power exchange in September and October last year. Some plants owned by the Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Ltd. (Mahagenco) remained shut due to non-availability of coal. The report stated that the “normal daily demand for the state is 18,000 MW, which touched 21,000 MW per day in these months.” The Rattan India and Adani Power also failed to meet their contractual obligations to Mahavitaran, which forced it to buy 92 crore units at the rate of Rs 5.28 per unit.
The purchase of power from the power exchange resulted in the additional burden of Rs 350 crore on Mahavitaran, and which is why the power distributor is recovering from consumers in the April 2019 power bills. A senior Mahavitaran official told the leading daily, “The only choices we had was to either order power cuts or buy power from wherever possible with permission of the state regulator. We exercised the second option.”