Regulatory panel rejects KSEB plea
Panel says that the board had to venture in for radical internal reforms to control the costs.
Thiruvananthapuram: The KSEB’s attempt to play to the gallery has been ridiculed by the Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The board has said that it would be forced to retrench and curtail the DA and other employee perks if the ERC decides to slash its employee cost.
In response, the ERC said that the board could easily improve employee productivity without retrenchment or robbing them of their entitlements.
The ERC reminded the board that the need to improve employee productivity and limit the employee expenses had been stressed by the commission over the years.
However, the board had not taken any tangible action towards this direction and the employee cost has been increasing.
The commission said that the board had to sincerely venture in for radical internal reforms to control the costs.
“The reform measures are not aimed at retrenchment or reducing the existing benefits allowed to the employees but at measures especially at the HR level that include redesigning the tasks, re-training, re-tooling, process re-engineering, infusion of proper IT and technology,” the ERC said in its order on November 25.
It said that the board had not even initiated a study to assess the optimum level of human resources taking into account the technological advancements and adoption of new and improved technology. The need for such a study was stressed by the ERC as early as 2010.
In the Aggregate Revenue Requirement for 2013-14, the KSEB has estimated the total employee cost, including pension liabilities for the year 2013-14, as Rs 2,551.50 crore.
However, while approving the ARR, the ERC has disallowed a total amount of Rs 747.69 crore from the employee cost projected by the KSEB and approved the employee cost at Rs 1803.81 crore, a 30 percent reduction.