The following distinct and peculiar features can be highlighted as follows.

1. Organisation of Public Utilities:

Public Utilities are organised in the Joint Stock Company pattern on either the registered basis or statutory basis. There may be the participation of the Government in the capital holding.

2. Supply of indispensable services:

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The services offered by public utilities are essential and indispensable in nature, without which the existence of comfortable living gets affected adversely. For instance, the services like electricity, water, sewerage etc., have become a part and parcel of daily life of an individual.

3. Uninterrupted supply of goods or services:

The supply of goods and services by the public utilities should be continuous and without any interruptions, to ensure normal life for the people in the society. The services cannot be stopped due to strike of employees as they cannot go on strike as per the norms of Essential Services Act, 1948.

4. Large capital outlay:

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Public Utilities require huge capital investments to be made as the volume of operation is on a very large scale. They may be required to acquire large pieces of land to expand the scope of their operations and also install heavy equipments, machinery and manufacturing plants.

5. Monopoly in offering services:

The public utilities rarely have competition among organisations offering similar products or services except in case of gas and transport sector as prevailing today. It is usually a case of natural monopoly due to the nature of services offered by them.

6. State control:

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Since the services offered are indispensable, essential and monopolised, it is compulsory to organise these under the state control and regulation in order to ensure stability in services offered. Absence of total private control ensures constant, uninterrupted and uniform services are being offered.

7. Inelastic demand:

The demand for the services offered by the public utilities is generally inelastic, i.e., to say that any increase in the prices of these services will not generally decrease the demand for these services.

8. Non-transferability of demand:

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In the words of J.F. Sleeman, in his treatise entitled British Public Utilities, “The consumer of a particular service cannot usually transfer his demand from one supplier to another, unless he is willing to change the nature of his demand”.

Now days, this is not always true in cases like gas services, there is choice available for the user to change his supplier. If electricity is not available, alternative sources of artificial power with the help of generators may be generated and used. If public transport system is inefficient, private transport facility is used by the public.

9. Franchise:

Since, the public utilities require certain rights, privileges and grants, they obtain a franchise from the State legislature or any authorised agency under State regulation. They are allowed to acquire any piece of land from public unconditionally and also use any portion of land or building for erections and installations, if necessary.

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10. Absence of discrimination:

The public utilities do not offer discriminatory services to different segments of the society. They offer uniform services to the public in general, though for business and industrial requirements the services offered may vary in not only magnitude but also in size.

If there is any restriction on maximum units of services offered, such restrictions would be common to all and not discriminatory by virtue of the political, social or economic power of the users.

Uniform pricing:

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The rates charged by public utilities are uniform for all the users. Sometimes the rates charged may differ for the commercial users from that of the domestic users, but among each category of user there will be no dual pricing procedure adopted. All the commercial users pay the same rate among themselves and all the domestic users also pay the same rate among themselves.

Protection of public interests:

Public Utilities are required to provide maximum benefit at minimum cost to the public. The public should not find any difficulty in getting the essential supplies. The procedures and formalities to be followed while providing the essential services should be minimum and within the purview of the public.

They must ensure maintenance of the quality of services offered to the public always. Special cells must be set up to listen to the public grievances and to take immediate action to rectify any errors immediately.

Further, the primary objective of establishing a public utility concern is to render service rather than earn profits. This is possible totally if all the public utilities are nationalised and brought under State control or regulation.