GERC turns down Torrent petition for power tariff hike
TNN 10 December 2009,

AHMEDABAD: There will be no hike in electricity tariff in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Surat. Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC) has turned down the petition of Torrent Power Limited (TPL) to revise electricity charges for the three cities across different sectors. An order to this effect was passed by GERC on Wednesday.

According to an official release, GERC had not approved Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) of TPL, which was Rs 2,195 crore for Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar area and brought it down to Rs 1,945 crore while in case of Surat the ARR request was scaled down from Rs 1,375 crore to Rs 1,223 crore. ARR is the basis on which a power company petitions before the regulatory body for hike in power tariff charges citing business operations requirements.

Before passing this order, GERC had conducted public hearings on October 3, 5 and 12 this year on TPL's petition. Various stakeholders, including individuals as well as organizations participated in the hearing.

The actual sale in Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar area during the year 2008-09 was 4,737 million units as against 4,922 million units estimated in Multi Year Tariff (MYT) order. Similarly, the sale in Surat distribution area during the year 2008-09 was 2,907 million units as against estimated sale of 3,186 million units .

One of the major reasons cited by TPL for this drop in sale was economic slowdown. In the MYT order, GERC had approved distribution losses of 6 per cent for Surat and 10.43 per cent for Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar distribution area for the year 2008-09. However, actual distribution losses achieved by TPL are 5.51 per cent in Surat area and 8.69 per cent in Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar area for the 2008-09. This was an achievement by TPL according to GERC.

The net generation from TPL's power stations at Sabarmati and Vatva during the year 2008-09 was 100 million units higher than what was estimated in the MYT order and during the year, the generating stations have achieved better performance than estimated.

GERC, however, noted that the SUGEN power project which had been operational since August 2009 has its distribution areas in Surat and Ahmedabad- Gandhinagar. Being a mega-power project, the tariff for electricity generated at SUGEN will be determined by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).

GERC further noted that being year-end, TPL was required to file annual performance review for the year 2009-10 and tariff proposal for 2010-11 had to be submitted by December 15 this year. GERC hence refused to revise tariff rates and directed TPL to continue to charge the prevailing rates.