Haryana hikes power tariff by 15%

CHANDIGARH: People in Haryana will have to pay more for power from April 1 as Haryana Energy Regulatory Commission (HERC) on Friday hiked tariff by around 10 to 15% in most categories.
With the hike in charges, the commission hopes to generate additional revenue of Rs 1,795 crore for the two Discoms ­ Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited (UHBVNL) and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited (DHBVNL) to improve their financial health.

According to the commission's order, “The tariff increase in case of the poorest among domestic consumers whose monthly consumption is up to 40 units has been kept at 7 paise per unit only.“

For 2012-13, the tariff payable by agriculture pumpset (AP) consumers remains at almost the same level. The AP subsidy payable by the state government has worked out to Rs 3,974 crore against Rs. 3,872.95 crore budgeted by the government.

“The commission would like to clarify that none of the consumer categories are contributing any cross subsidy to AP consumers as the entire subsidy is being paid by the state government,“ said the order. The annual revenue requirement has been pegged at Rs 15,578.9 crore for 2012-13 against Rs 23,234.89 crore projected by UHBVNL and DHBVNL.

The revenue gap for 2012-13 has been estimated to be Rs 1,666.8 crore as against Rs 7,755.23 crore projected by the two Discoms. After taking into account the revenue gap of Rs 2,533.82 crore of previous years, as determined by the commission, the total revenue gap required to be bridged through tariff hike works out to Rs 4,200.62 crore.

“An increase of about 42% is required across all categories to meet the entire revenue gap,“ the commission said. “This is primarily on account of the fact that there has been no increase in the distribution and retail supply tariff since 2000-01, except for around 13% increase in 2010-11 and a marginal increase in 2011-12. Also utilities have not been able to bring down their distribution/commercial losses to the level indicated by the commission in its various tariff orders.“