The Electricity Consumers’ Association (ECA) has warned of appropriate legal proceedings before the Supreme Court (SC) and the Court of Appeal (CoA) against the Ceylon Electricity Board’s (CEB) preparations to revise electricity tariffs for the third time during the course of this year (2023).

Citing its current income situation, the CEB had recently requested the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) to grant permission for a revision of the electricity tariffs, impliedly a tariff increase. The PUCSL had, accordingly, called for written comments and suggestions from the public and other stakeholders up to 18 October.

Speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday (2), ECA General Secretary Sanjeewa Dhammika said that the PUCSL should, at the first instance, have dismissed the CEB’s proposal to revise tariffs with effect from October 2023, as two tariff revisions have already been made during this year.

“We are waiting for the PUCSL to take the appropriate action. If they don’t fulfil their responsibility, we will definitely file a fundamental rights (FR) petition before the SC against the CEB’s preparations to increase electricity tariffs once again. In addition, we hope to file an application before the CoA, seeking a writ order preventing the electricity tariffs from being revised before January of next year (2024),” he explained.

In a recent letter addressed to the PUCSL, 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%, thus 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, impliedly the approval of a tariff increase.