Panaji (GOA): The Congress party on Friday gherod Chief Electrical Engineer Nilkanta Reddy demanding immediate withdrawal of Fuel Power Purchase and Cost Adjustment (FPPCA) charges that are recovered from domestic and industrial consumers in way of hefty power bills.

Reddy assured the delegation led by All India Congress Committee (AICC) Girish Chodankar to put up note before Government for withdrawal of FPPCA charges.

The congress threatened to continue their protest and to take on street exposing government’s anti-people policies, if it fails to withdraw the charges soon.

“Reddy has assured to write to government for roll back of the FPPCA charges which are recovered from the consumers,” Chodankar told reporters.

The delegation also questioned Reddy about Power Minister Pandurang Madkaikar’s misguiding statement that FPPCA are one time charges, whereas the Chief Electrical Engineer informed that it is quarterly.

“FPPCA charges were unavoidable. Government has not charged any extra money from the public. In fact, the department had informed people over these charges. Power tariff has not been hiked for the last two years and it will not be hiked in the coming year too,” Minister had said while addressing reporters earlier this week.

The department confirms that bills for this 4th quarter of FY 2016-17 i.e from January-March-2017 are high when compared with balance 3 quarters of FY 2016-17. The difference to be recovered through the formula of fuel purchase has gone up from 40-47 paisa per unit to 148 paisa per unit. Hence the category wise levy ranges from 62 paisa per unit to 327 paisa per unit.

FPPCA is the difference of per unit actual cost of power purchase and per unit approved cost of power purchase.

Charges will be applicable to all consumers except those under the agriculture category till July

Team TNV