The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) will not consider the recent request made by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to approve an increase in electricity tariffs until a request prepared in the accepted format is received, The Daily Morning learns.
In a letter dated 4 September 2023, the CEB had informed the PUCSL of financial difficulties that it had to face due to the electricity tariff reduction in July 2023, and requested that appropriate action, impliedly a tariff hike, be approved with immediate effect.
When contacted by The Daily Morning yesterday (19), a member of the PUCSL said that the CEB’s letter dated 3 September 2023, is not in the required format to propose a tariff revision, and that it is an elaboration of the financial difficulties that it faces at present. “We have not yet discussed the letter. There is a particular format for a tariff revision to be proposed. When such a request is made, we will consider it.”
In the relevant letter addressed to the Director General of the PUCSL, the CEB General Manager, Engineer Rohan Seneviratne had said that the CEB had proposed a 3.15% reduction in the electricity tariff for the period from July to December 2023, but that the PUCSL had reduced the tariff by about 14.2%, curtailing a considerable amount of the allowed expenditure (approximately Rs. 33 billion) for the operations of the CEB for 2023. Therefore, the CEB had requested the PUCSL to take appropriate actions with immediate effect to fulfill the conditions given in the General Policy Guidelines for the Electricity Industry of the Government and Section 30(4) of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act, No. 20 of 2009 (as amended).
Meanwhile, commenting on the CEB's request, the Electricity Consumers' Association’s Chairman Sanjeewa Dhammika recently claimed that the CEB was preparing to hike tariffs by 56%. Emphasising that the CEB and the Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera could not revise electricity tariffs whenever they want, he said that only two tariff revisions could be made per year with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers, and that therefore, it is wrong for the CEB to have sought approval for a tariff revision.