§ 8-1-2-4 — Services to public; rates and charges

Every public utility is required to furnish
reasonably adequate service and facilities. The charge made by any
public utility for any service rendered or to be rendered either directly
or in connection therewith shall be reasonable and just, and every
unjust or unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and
declared unlawful. The commission, in order to expedite the
determination of rate questions, or to avoid unnecessary and
unreasonable expense, or to avoid discrimination in rates between
classes of customers, or, whenever in the judgment of the commission
public interest so requires, may, for ratemaking and accounting
purposes, or either of them, consider a single municipality and/or two
(2) or more municipalities and/or the adjacent and/or intervening rural
territory as a regional unit where the same utility serves such region,
and may within such region prescribe uniform rates for consumers or
patrons of the same class. Nothing in this chapter contained shall
authorize any public utility during the remainder of the term of any
grant or franchise under which it may be acting on May 1, 1913, to
charge for any service, in such grant or franchise contracted, exceeding
the maximum rate or rates therefor, if any, that may be fixed in such
grant or franchise.
Formerly: Acts 1913, c.76, s.7; Acts 1933, c.190, s.2. As
amended by P.L.59-1984, SEC.10.