The Board of the Uttarakhand Power Corporation limited (UPCl) has recommended a hike of 13.44 percent in the power tariff in the State for the financial year 2018-19. This recommendation was made by the board to the Uttarakhand Energy Regulatory Commission (UERC) which would declare the new tariff plan in March. The Chairman of the board of directors of UPCl and Secretary Power, Radhika Jha said the board has the power to recommend the tariff and the rates are decided by the UERC. She informed that the earlier the board was planning to recommend an increase of 22 percent which was later brought down to 13.44 percent. Jha informed that the recommendation of increase in tariff this year is lowest in last five years. She said that a recommendation to increase the power tariff by 26 percent was made for the year 2015-16 but UERC actually implemented an increase of 7 percent. Similarly UPCl board recommended increase of 25 per cent and 13.48 percent for the year 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively but the tariffs were increased by only 5 percent (2016-17) and 5 percent (2017-18). Jha said that she has asked the Managing Directors of all power corporations to reduce operational costs.
The power tariffs would be finalised by the UERC after scrutiny of the proposal of board for next three months. It would also conduct public hearing on the issue and then finalize new tariff plans. At present the domestic users are charged at a rate of `3.89 per unit while non domestic charges are pegged at `5.69 per unit.