Poineer
LUCKNOW | Saturday, August 1, 2009 |

UPPCL proposes 20pc hike in power tariff

Raj Bahadur Singh | Lucknow

Power consumers are in for a shock as the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) has decided to increase power tariff by a whopping 20 per cent. The hike will be uniform in domestic as well as commercial sector.

The power corporation has submitted the proposal to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) on Friday.

The argument put forth by the corporation is that the proposed hike in power tarrif will help in reducing the gap between revenue realisation and requirement.

“The government will achieve its target is not clear but this hike will definitely burn a hole in consumers’ pocket,” an office-bearer of Power Consumer Forum said.

The UPPCL had raised the power tarriff by 14 per cent in April 2008.

As per the provision, the SERC will take a decision on the proposal within 120 days.

UPPCL has proposed 20 per cent hike in commercial and industrial tarrif while for urban domestic consumer having one kilowatt connection, the tarrif will remain unchanged.

As per the proposal, the urban domestic comsumers getting power supply for more than 18 hours and having consumption of within 200 units will have to pay Rs 4.25 per unit while those having consumption of more than 200 units will pay Rs 5 per unit.

Similarly, those receiving power supply of less than 18 hours will have to pay Rs 4 per unit and Rs 4.75 per unit for consumption of 200 units and more respectively.

Sources said that the UPPCL claimed that by the proposed hike in tarrif, the gap of revenue realisation and requirement would be reduced by Rs 2,000 crore.

Presently, the annual revenue requirement of the UPPCL is Rs 22,000 crore against which it realises Rs 1,200 crore besides getting Rs 2,000 crore from the state government in form of agriculture subsidy. The UPPCL still falls short of Rs 8,000 crore against annual revenue realisation.

In its proposal submitted to the SERC, the UPPCL claimed that it would get Rs 2,000 crore by the proposed hike as it would also focus on 100 per cent revenue realisation.

A senior official in UPPCL admitted that even 70 per cent realisation of tarrif was an uphill task and a cent per cent realisation was not possible.

“The UPPCL, since its inception nine years back, is under an accumulative loss of Rs 27,000 crore. Even if the proposed hike gets SERC nod in totality, the situation will not change much except making life more difficult for the consumers,” he said.