Consumers will have to shell out more money for usage of electricity in Punjab as the State power corporation is levying Fuel Cost Adjustment (FCA) surcharge on the consumers. The FCA surcharge has been levied at a rate of five paise per kilowatt-hour (KWh) each for metered category (domestic, industrial segments) and unmetered category (farming sector), as per the Punjab State Power Corporation limited (PSPCl) notification.
With the levying of surcharge, the State-owned power utility will recover `47.08 crore from metered category and `29.33 crore from unmetered category, as per notification. The surcharge is levied for the second quarter of 2014-15 (July -September 2014) and it will be recovered from January 1 till March 2015, it said.
FCA is levied to recover any increase in coal and power purchase cost which is required to be collected from power consumers. PSPCl had projected total revenue gap of `11,317.78 crore up to financial year 2015-16, seeking “appropriate increase” in power tariff from the power regulator to cover the proposed gap.
In an Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) petition submitted with the power regulator Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) for the fiscal 2015-16, PSPCl projected net revenue requirement and revenue generation `27,683.96 crore and `24,414.81 crore, leading to annual revenue gap of `3,269.26 crore. The power regulator in August last year had announced 2.74 per cent hike in power tariff across all consumer categories in Punjab for the financial year 2014-15.