Punjab power regulator on Friday announced a hike of around 3 per cent in the power tariff in the State, one of the lowest in recent years. The increase will come into effect from April 1, 2014.
Announcing several “pro-consumers” and “industry-friendly” measures, the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) claimed that it is the second lowest increase during SAD-BJP regime.The decision will burden the consumers by Rs593.63 crore, for which 2.74 per cent increase was announced across the board. “However, the category-wise tariffs have been determined to bring the cross subsidy levels for all the categories within plus-minus 20 per cent of the combined average cost of supply,” said the PSERC chairperson Romila Dubey while announcing the tariff order for 2014-15.
The Commission claimed that it has spared consumers from a major jolt by turning down the proposal of the state power utility — Punjab State Power Corporation limited (PSPCl) — recommending power hike by 10 per cent.The “minimal” increase in power tariff was possible as PSERC brought down the Punjab State Power Corporation limited’s (PSPCl) projected consolidated revenue gap of Rs15,550.64 crore to mere Rs593.63 crore.
This is after “true-up” of the PSPCl’s financials for the year 2010-11 and 2011-12 and review of 2013-14.PSERC determined the PSPCl’s annual revenue requirement at Rs22,904.58 crore as against Rs26,169.25 crore projected by power utility.In a relief to the domestic consumers, the Commission has not made any increase “in tariff for the first slab of 0-100 kWh/kVAh per month for DS category. The increase in tariff for other categories, except agriculture pumpsets (AP), is in the range of 11 to 13 paise per kWh”.
Besides, the Commission has also taken several measures to benefit the power consumers including extending time of day tariff to medium supply industry category while providing rebate for the large supply industrial category. In addition, the Commission has also decided to provide rebate to consumers for high voltage consumers, do away with service charges, rationalisation of late payment charges, among other things.
The announcement is being seen as an attempt by the SAD-BJP-led State Government to balance out things at a time when the party is making attempt to improve its image. Notably, the State Government, after more than 9 per cent power hike the previous year, faced severe criticism by not only the consumers or Opposition parties, but also one of the alliance partner, the BJP.
The tariff order customarily is announced sometimes in April, but was delayed this year due to the imposition of model code of conduct following the declaration of lok Sabha elections.
“Code of conduct was in place for lok Sabha polls. The State Government has only passed its vote on account earlier and budget was passed only in July, and now the code was again in place for two bypolls,” said Dubey.The electricity tariff on the agriculture pumpset (AP) consumers has been increased to 456 paise per kilowatt hour, from 425 paise per kWh. However, Punjab Government is committed to bear the entire financial burden on account of “free” power supply to the farmers — forming a major part of the vote bank.
Interestingly, the Commission has accessed the total amount of Government subsidy for free power supply to the AP consumers for 2014-15 at Rs4,454.54 crore against previous year’s figure of Rs4,778.13 crore. “The reduction in agriculture subsidy is due to determination ofAP consumption by the commissions based on energy fed into AP feeders as recorded ay PSPCl stations,” said Dubey.
She clarified that decrease in agri-subsidy was made by changing from 10 per cent of sample metering to AP feeders.In addition, the State Government also pay power subsidy for supplying free power up to 200 units per month to SC domestic consumers and non-SC BPl domestic consumers — adding upto Rs654.86 crore.“The total amount of subsidy has been worked as Rs4,951.14 crore, after adjusting Rs158.26 crore on account of excess subsidy received by PSPCl from the Government up to 2013-14,” said Dubey.
On the transmission and distribution losses, Dubey said that the same has come down from 19 to 18 per cent in 2012-13, and further to 17 per cent in 2013-14. “The T&D losses for 2014-15 have been fixed as 16 per cent,” she said.Dubey said, “The commission managed to bring down the T&D losses by making good capital investment and taking steps to improve the transmission system.”
In an attempt to bring down the transmission losses, the Commission has approved a capital investment plan of Rs500 crore for transmission business of PSTCl and Rs2,000 crore for PSPCl to strengthen its infrastructure to further improve quality of service to the consumers of the State.
An investment plan of Rs27 crore has also been approved for State load Dispatch Centre (SlDC) business of Rs40.76 crore has also been provided for implementation of various Demand Side Management (DSM) programmes.