With the state taking its time in the process, one of the six selected was grabbed by the Gujarat government for its own SERC. Consequently, the committee will now need to suggest an alternative while ensuring that the remaining five are still keen on their slots in the SERC.

Deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, who also holds the energy portfolio, says that the panel can be set up by the month-end, a considerable time lag from the originally planned October last year.

The provision for SERC was made in the Electricity Regulatory Commission Act passed in April last year. Munde had then said that Maharashtra would be the first state to set up the commission when in reality Gujarat, Haryanaand other states are well ahead. The SERC endeavours to rationalise and regulate power tariff. This is especially crucial to Maharashtra which, on the one hand, has committed higher payment for buying power to private players while not being in a position to rationalise tariff due to political pressure.

Besides, in the case filed by the Thane-Belapur Industries Association (TBIA) against the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) on the issue increased tariff, the high court had directed the state to set up the SERC immediately.

The commission would also look into the power hike announced by the board last September. MSEB, however, has challenged the decision of the high court in the Supreme Court. TBIA maintained that the board increased the tariff to subsidise the cost of power supplied to agriculture and failed to recover long-pending arrears from consumers. It argued that industries which already pay a higher tariff cannot take a further burden of cross subsidisation. The state also needs tosettle the dispute between the Tata Electric Companies (TEC) and the BSES largely relating to standby and demand charges.

If the commission was in place, Maharashtra would not have had to dictate the tariff structure to provide for cross subsidy. According to the Act, the commission as an independent body will regulate tariff and if the state wants to offer subsidy to any sector it has to provide it through the government coffers.

As the SERC is also authorised to intervene in the dispute between the power companies, it could resolve the long-pending controversial issues of TEC and BSES. Apart from these, there are other controversial issues such as captive power policy of the state which can be addressed by the commission.