Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has called the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka’s 18% electricity tariff hike “extortion” targeting businessmen and industrialists, in a special statement issued on Friday.
Premadasa accused the government of placing the financial burden of importing substandard coal on the shoulders of electricity consumers. Despite the opposition’s request not to load this cost onto bill payers, he said, the PUCSL and the government had implemented the proposal to increase tariffs by 18%.
“The upper middle-class, businessmen, industrialists and entrepreneurs have been severely affected by the imposition of these new electricity tariffs for electricity consumers exceeding 180 units,” Premadasa said. He framed the decision as the government attempting to extort the business community.
The PUCSL approved the 18% tariff hike on May 9 for consumers using above 180 units a month, while leaving rates unchanged for the roughly 95% of households below that threshold. The regulator said the increase was a response to a National System Operator (NSO) Q2 cost-revision filing covering an Rs.38 billion supply-cost gap and an Rs.15 billion subsidy outflow, with the rate effective from May 11.
The PUCSL ruling explicitly excluded the cost of substandard coal from the tariff base — a “firewall” intended to shield consumers from the financial fallout of an active coal-procurement investigation. Premadasa’s “extortion” framing, the first major opposition response to the PUCSL decision, contests that characterisation by arguing the larger import-cost picture has nonetheless been pushed onto bill payers.
The 18% tariff increase is the first substantive consumer price action since the PUCSL approved an automatic tariff revision mechanism earlier this year, and the first electricity tariff increase under the NPP government.
