Stating that it does not want to over burden its consumers with power tariff hike, the Electricity Department has proposed ‘No’ further hike in its tariff for the ongoing financial year. The proposal, if approved by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC), will give major relief to nearly 6.09 lakh consumers in the State.

“It is submitted that ED is into regulatory regime under JERC from FY 2011-12 onwards and so far has got tariff revision that is 11.8 percent in 2012, 7.6 percent in 2014, 14 percent in 2015 and 4.85 percent in 2016. However, ED feels that considering the past trend of the tariff hike, it doesn’t want to over burden the consumers by tariff hike and shock,” the department has said in its tariff Determination for Financial year (FY) 2017-18 petition to JERC.

The department has calculated a cumulative Revenue gap of Rs 149 crores till end of FY 2017-18.

“ED submits that to recover the total proposed cumulative Revenue gap of Rs 149 crores till FY 2017-18, no hike is proposed by ED and the revenue gap will be met through budgetary support to be provided by the State government,” it added.

The department proposes to continue with the existing tariff as per which the consumers with monthly consumption of 0-100 units will have a fixed charge of Rs 20 and Rs 1.30 per unit (kWh). For the consumption between 101-200 units, the charge would be Rs 1.90 kWh, for 201-300 units fixed charge of Rs 45 and energy charges of Rs 2.40 kWh, 301-400 units it is 3.10 kWh and for consumption above 401 units it would be 3.60 kWh.

The department’s revenue requirement for the ongoing FY stands at Rs 1845.32 crores, of which Rs 1330.98 crores would be spent on purchase of 3998.32 million units of power.

Team TNV