THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) amended the Kerala electricity supply code, enabling owners of residential units in unfinished or indefinitely delayed apartment/villa projects to apply for individual power connections at a reasonable expense.
Individual beneficiaries within residential colonies or villa projects, where projects have been abandoned midway before being handed over, or where disputes between the promoter/developer and individual beneficiaries are pending before Kerala Real Estate Regulatory Authority (K-Rera) or the appellate tribunal, or where the projects have failed to meet timelines allotted by K-Rera, shall be at liberty to approach the licensee for availing service connections by submitting separate applications, said KSERC’s order.
KSERC’s order comes following several complaints that residents of stalled real estate projects were facing difficulties in availing electricity supply as they could not meet the volume of expense which the builder was supposed to bear upon successful completion of the project.
The commission order directed the licensee to verify the applications and calculate the expense for electricity connection based on the connected load. Upon receiving the intimation regarding expenses, the individual beneficiary or collective body of beneficiaries shall remit the proportionate share of expenses to avail the service connection.
The remaining expenditure for the extension or upgradation of the distribution system and/or the construction of the internal distribution network, as applicable, shall be recovered from other individual beneficiaries in proportion to their connected load as and when they apply for electrical connection to their individual housing units.
The licensee may claim the expenses in the annual accounts, and the same should be netted off as and when the balance amount spent by the licensee is recovered from other individual beneficiaries.
The internal distribution network, including the transformer, switch gears and underground service line cable of transformers developed by the licensees, should be maintained by it. The expense of the same can be claimed in the annual statement of accounts.
