Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has submitted a Fundamental Rights petition before the Supreme Court, seeking an order instructing authorities to lower electricity costs and tariffs.
In his petition, the Opposition Leader highlighted findings from the Parliament Sectoral Oversight Committee Office, revealing that approximately 800,000 electricity connections were disconnected in the last three quarters. This disconnection, he argued, was a consequence of the public’s inability to cope with excessively high electricity costs and tariffs.
Premadasa further contended that persistent mismanagement has led to a surge in new electricity costs, compelling small, medium, and large-scale producers and manufacturing industries to scale down their production. There is also a looming threat of complete shutdowns due to the inability to meet the escalated electricity tariffs.
The Opposition Leader maintained that the Parliament Sectoral Oversight Committee’s findings disclosed inaccuracies in hydropower generation estimation, miscalculations in coal and thermal generation, flawed forecasts of electricity demand, and inefficiencies in institutional coordination. These shortcomings, as per Premadasa, resulted in a misguided decision by the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka to increase electricity tariffs in October 2023.
