Brace yourself Mumbaikars, as your electricity bills are about to go up from May. The electricity board gave its approval to power companies to hike their charges.
According to Maharashtra Times, earlier the hike in electricity bills was done in 2018 and after which now April the second hike has been done. But the consumers will only receive the new hiked electricity charges from May. As per the new hike in charges, consumers from Mumbai will have to pay 26 paise more, while the consumers from the rest of Maharashtra will have to pay 16 paise more. The report further also states that the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST), which supplies electricity in South Mumbai, will likely go down by 3 percent.
Earlier, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL or Mahavitaran) had said that it 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 “normal daily demand for the state is 18,000 MW, which touched 21,000 MW per day in these months.” 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.
