Public views sought on power tariffs and service
View(s):The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), regulator of the electricity industry, is seeking public opinion to ensure fairness in the electricity tariff and power supply service through a comprehensive survey and investigation.
The commission has made a request for proposals in a newspaper advertisement to engage the services of a reputed firm (the service provider) to conduct an island-wide sample base opinion survey on electricity tariff and renewable energy to achieve this objective.
Under supervision and collaboration with the Commission, the service provider will be responsible for designing the survey questionnaire, pilot run of the questionnaire, and make necessary amendments.
The objective of the public survey will be to gauge public awareness of electricity tariff and renewable energy through assessing public opinion and perceptions on prevailing electricity tariff, and renewable energy and determine the impact on their lives and willingness to adapt to changes in service quality/ tariff schemes.
The survey is aimed at examining the perception and opinions of citizens regarding the supply reliability standard set by the National Energy Polices and Sri Lanka Electricity Act and associated Regulations, and whether consumers are willing to swap reliability for a lower tariff.
It will assess the public opinion on meter reading frequency and options to reduce meter reading cost and universal access to modern electricity services as oppose to subsidies.
People’s views will be sought on present subsidy policy; whether such subsidies are required/necessary for Domestic, Religious, Industry and Government consumers, and assess the impact (if any) on their life from the perceptions and opinions of the citizens on service quality and price level changes proposed .
According to the methodology of the survey the public should make recommendations to improve the service provisioning in electricity supply.
The PUCSL will entertain the proposals of reputed firms (the Service Providers) till the 18th of March 2014.
The Commission, in its first public consultation on electricity tariffs, presented to the public of Sri Lanka in late 2010, (i) the approved tariff methodology, (ii) comprehensive calculations of the costs of supply and tariffs to be charged for inter-licensee transfers and for sale of electricity to end-use customers, and (iii) a road map to restructure and re-balance the tariffs such that Sri Lanka achieves cost-reflective tariffs by year 2015.
Accordingly, Sri Lanka is presently in the first five-year “tariff period” in which many of the principles and reforms envisaged in policies and laws were planned to be implemented.
The objective was to systematically implement all the provisions in the National Energy Policy, the Electricity Act and the Tariff Methodology by 2015.
The next phase of tariff reforms is expected to be implemented from 2016 onwards.