In a sigh of relief to the electricity consumers, the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) on Tuesday announced that there would be no hike in electricity tariff for consumers for all categories for 2016-17.
The Commission has not accepted the proposed distribution loss of 30.64 per cent of distribution companies (Discoms) and only allowed 21.34 per cent as distribution loss on normative basis.
“The price at which discoms purchase power from Gridco Bulk Supply Price (BSP) has got reduced. Since power purchase cost constitutes a major percentage of tariff, there is no requirement of increasing the tariff although the number of subsidised categories of consumers has increased considerably,” stated an OERC notification.
Also there has been no change in rate for transmission charge which has been kept at 25 paise per unit which is same as that of 2015-16, it added.
Similarly, no changes have been made to the meter rent, the notification said.
The Commission has emphasised the need of energy audit in the coming year and has allocated a sum of about Rs 100 crore for the purpose and also allocated Rs 30 crore to Gridco to purchase renewable energy.
It has directed the discoms to explore the possibility of printing electricity bill in Odia language and directed the discoms to fix responsibility on the erring officials who are colluding with unscrupulous persons stealing powers
Electricity consumers in the State were apprehensive of hike in tariff from April 1, as the OERC had said in February 18 that new tariff would be notified in the third week of March.
The OERC had conducted a public hearing on tariff fixation in which electricity producers Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC), Odisha Power Generation Corporation (OPGC), four discoms, power trading company Gridco, Odisha Power Transmission Corporation limited (OPTCl) and State load Despatch Centre (SlDC) had opined in favour of increasing tariff. However, the move was opposed by the electricity consumers’ organisations.
The Odisha Jan Jagran Manch and the Odisha Rajya Bidyut Upabhokta Mahasangha had staged dharna in front of the OERC office protesting against the move to increase electricity tariff.