nagpur msedcl has been increasing tariff every now and then claiming that its financial position is alarming however this does not stop it from illegally reducing the tariff of industrial consumers which has caused a loss of crores in revenue moreover this relief has been granted arbitrarily to only a select few industries information collected by consumer activist ashish chandarana shows that 173 big industries benefitted by getting their categories changed from ht1c continuous supply to ht1n noncontinuous supply the tariff of continuous supply industries as per august 16 2012 tariff order was rs 701 per unit while that of noncontinuous was rs 633 per unit the difference of 68 paise per unit translates into crores per year for industries whose monthly bills are in crores they went for a category change because ht1n category stopped facing load shedding after february 2012maharashtra electricity regulatory commission merc had issued an order on september 12 2008 stating that category change was allowed only within one month of issue of its new power tariff order in this case the month period was from august 16 2012 to september 15 2012 msedcl had issued a tariff circular on the basis of the august 16 2012 order on september 5 2012 even if the period is to be considered on basis of the circular it ends on october 4 2012 however msedcl entertained applications of some industrialists well beyond this period even as it rejected many applications citing the merc order a glaring case is that of mumbaibased century rayon ltd it applied for category change on february 27 2013 and it was done with effect from february 28 a day later on the other hand akolabased ruhadia spinners had applied on october 4 2012 but it was given relief with effect from march 25 2013 ruhadia went to consumer court and won the case msedcl appealed in high court and lost now the matter has reached supreme court ruhatia agro had applied on september 16 2012 but its application was rejected by msedcl stating that one month period for category change had ended on september 15 chandarana said that many other industries were victims of msedcls arbitrariness hardoli paper mills ltd had applied on august 26 2012 well within the one month period but is yet to get relief he told toi many big industries got their category changed after the one period videocon aurangabad bombay rayon fashion ltd mumbai shivajali ispat sound casting ltd and nilanjan iron all kolhapur etc the consumer activist pointed out that noncontinuous supply consumers were still getting power at a lower rate the tariff for these industries is now rs 782 per unit while that of continuous supply category is rs 859 per unit a difference of 77 paise per unit he said msedcl officials in mumbai had no explanation for these illegal changes in category and arbitrariness a senior official said that as loadshedding had been withdrawn for noncontinuous category msedcl decided to grant relief to