In "Who Will Bell the Cat?" the demand was to collect Rs 3,000 crore in arrears before any tariff hike — Rs 1,006 crore private dues with no court case and Rs 1,320 crore from government departments. This RTI series examines the other side of the ledger: the rent, lease and Right of Way fees owed by KSEB Limited for occupying state-owned land, while operating as a corporate entity under the Companies Act.
2. Documents on Record — Receipts, Transfer Letter and Notice of Negligence
3. Timeline and Legal Violations — Section 6(3), 7(1), 7(2), 7(6)
4. Why RoW Rent Was Asked — Companies Act Entity Using Public Land
5. Two Possible Outcomes and What Each Would Prove
6. Template for Citizens — Filing the Same RTI in Any District
7. Next Steps — First Appeal and Second Appeal to SIC
1. The Two RTIs
The Revenue Department and Public Works Department through the online portal of Information Kerala Mission.
Four questions asked verbatim in both RTIs:
Q1. Lease Agreements and Commercial Rent: Details of the standard commercial lease rates or Right of Way (RoW) fees fixed by the Revenue Department / PWD for the occupation of state-owned land by KSEBL for substations, local section offices, transformer stations and electric poles.
Q2. Financial Collection Data: Total monetary amount collected by the Revenue Department / PWD from KSEBL as land rent, lease charges or RoW fees for financial years 2024–2025 and 2025–2026. District-wise or state-wide ledger summary sought.
Q3. Statutory Exemptions (If Applicable): If the Revenue Department / PWD does not collect commercial rent or RoW fees from KSEBL for utilizing state land, certified copy of the specific Government Order, notification or statutory provision that legally exempts KSEBL — a profit-oriented corporate entity — from paying commercial land usage fees to the State Government.
Q4. Inter-Departmental Arrears: Whether any pending rent or lease arrears are currently owed by KSEBL to the Revenue Department / PWD. If so, total outstanding amount as of current date.
2. Documents on Record
Five files submitted as evidence for this blog:
- System-generated receipts for online payment of Rs 10 each.
Application numbers RTI/286/IKM/2026 and RTI/341/IKM/2026. - RTI_APPLICATION-Operation_Right_of_Way.pdf
- L-E5_885-2026-IKM.pdf: Transfer letter from State Public Information Officer, Information Kerala Mission. File No 3148-E5-2026-IKM dated 31-07-2026.Transfer was made to Revenue / PWD.
- Notice_of_Negligence_Demand_for_Expedition.pdf: Notice addressed to SPIO, Revenue / PWD, with copy to SPIO, IKM (Ref File No 3148-E5-2026-IKM). Points out that original application dated 15-07-2026 was transferred only on 31-07-2026 after 16 days, violating Section 6(3) of RTI Act which mandates transfer within 5 days. Rejects the excuse of software/technical issues in new portal as legally invalid. Demands immediate supply of information and warns of First Appeal and complaint to State Information Commission seeking disciplinary action and penalty.
3. Timeline and Legal Violations
Legal violations documented: Section 6(3) RTI Act — transfer within 5 days violated by 11 days. Section 7(1) — failure to provide information in 30 days. Section 7(2) — deemed refusal. Section 7(6) — information to be provided free of cost when 30-day period lapses. Section 20 — penalty of Rs 250 per day up to Rs 25,000 for delay or malafide denial, applicable to SPIO IKM for excess delay and to SPIO Revenue/PWD for non-supply.
4. Why Right of Way Rent Was Asked
KSEB was unbundled and incorporated as KSEB Limited, a company under the Companies Act. It operates substations (33 kV, 11 kV), local section offices, transformer stations and lakhs of electric poles. Most of these assets are located on land owned by Revenue Department or on roads and road margins owned by Public Works Department.
Private telecom operators such as Jio and Airtel pay Right of Way fees for laying optical fibre on PWD roads. The question raised in the RTI is whether KSEBL, despite being a profit-oriented corporate entity, pays comparable commercial rent or RoW fees, or occupies public land free of cost.
The financial significance is material. Even at conservative rates of Rs 1,000 per month per substation and Rs 100 per pole per year, the annual rent for thousands of substations and lakhs of poles runs into crores. Over a decade, the cumulative amount is comparable to the Rs 1,320 crore arrears that government departments owe to KSEB. If KSEBL owes rent to Revenue/PWD while government departments owe electricity dues to KSEB, the net position can only be ascertained if both ledgers are published.
5. Two Possible Outcomes and What Each Would Prove
Outcome A: No rent collected and no Government Order exempting KSEBL. In this case, KSEBL occupies state-owned land without legal authority for free use. Thousands of assets on public land generate no revenue for the state. The state loses rent, KSEBL shows higher losses, and a tariff hike is sought to cover the shortfall. This mirrors the pattern flagged by CAG where 46.59% of KSEB revenue goes to salary and pension, and losses increased from Rs 696.96 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 1,822.35 crore in 2020-21, with long-term debt rising from Rs 3,753.51 crore to Rs 15,716.79 crore primarily on account of employee pension liability.
Outcome B: A Government Order exists exempting KSEBL from rent or RoW fees. In that case, Q3 requires a certified copy of the GO. The GO must be examined for Finance Department concurrence, date of issue, and continued validity after KSEB was converted to a Companies Act entity. The CAG report cited in "Who Will Bell the Cat?" flagged Rs 1,317.66 crore of additional liability created by pay revision in 2021 without mandatory Finance Department approval. A similar exemption without Finance concurrence for land rent would indicate a systemic pattern of bypassing financial oversight.
In either outcome, the public bears the cost — either through loss of state revenue or through tariff hikes to compensate for losses that could have been offset by rent collection or by netting off inter-departmental dues.
6. Link to Main Blog "Who Will Bell the Cat?"
This RTI series operationalizes the 11-point charter proposed in the main blog:
- Point 1 — Collect arrears before hike: Publish defaulter list above Rs 10 lakh, including Rs 1,006 crore private dues with no court case and Rs 1,320 crore government dues. This RTI adds the complementary ledger — rent owed by KSEBL to Revenue/PWD — for netting off.
- Point 5 — Separate powers: The authority that fixes RoW rates, the authority that enforces collection, and the authority that hears appeals must be separate. Currently, IKM, Revenue, PWD and KSEBL form a single government chain with no independent oversight.
- Point 6 — Publish every purchase and every lease: If the public pays Rs 12.50 per unit for emergency power, the public is entitled to see the invoice. Similarly, if KSEBL uses public land, the public is entitled to see the rent receipt or the GO exempting it.
- Point 9 — Who will bell the cat: A citizen with receipts PG114022607153067 and PG114022608020165 and documented proof of 16-day transfer violation.
One RTI on RoW rent can be answered with a denial. One hundred RTIs from different districts citing the same file numbers force compilation of a state-wide ledger.
One RTI on RoW rent can be answered with a denial.
Documentation: All receipts, transfer letter and notice of negligence are preserved as PDFs for produce before the Commission.
Kerala does not have a power deficit alone. It has a land-rent accounting deficit, an inter-departmental arrears deficit and an accountability deficit. The public pays Rs 12.50 per unit for emergency power while KSEBL may pay Rs 0 for emergency use of public land. That gap is not a technical loss — it is a governance loss that must be published.