Giving a major relief to the city electricity consumers, the Joint Regulatory Electricity Commission (JERC) has rejected the review petition of Chandigarh Electricity Department related to the Fuel and Power Purchase Cost Adjustment (FPPCA) to be collected from the consumers quarterly.
A review petition was filed by the UT Department in April. In its review petition, the CED had asked the JERC to allow the charging of FPPCA on account of non-allowance of full expenditure incurred by CED for power purchase from Power Exchange and UI for FY 2013-14.
“The Commission may allow the charging of FPPCA in FY 2014-15 as actual cost of power purchase of CED for FY 2013-14 as per GFR is Rs 605 crore against the Rs 558.81 crore approved by JERC in view of the position explained in following table and further, for FY 2014-15, the commission has allowed Rs 537.87 crore against CED submission of Rs 600.99 crore as a power purchase cost, stated the petition,” stated the CED petition.
In this regard, the JERC has stated that no review is required on the issue of power purchase cost. The JERC orders stated, “The Commission would like to highlight the fact that the Commission has already considered the actual power purchase expenses up to November 2013 which have been jointly reconciled with the representatives of the petitioner during the technical validation session. Further, it has already been detailed in the tariff order that the cost of power purchase has been considered on approved transmission and distribution losses and accordingly computed the Average Cost of Supply for FY 2013-14. Whereas, the petitioner is now submitting the revised average cost of supply on the actual power purchase which cannot be considered in the review.”
“However, as per provision of the Regulations, any variation in the power purchase cost will be taken care during the true-up stage after prudence check. Thus, the issue needs no review and the Commission finds no merit in petitioner’s submission and the issue is decided accordingly,” stated the orders.
The JERC order has also stated that no review is required on the issues related to interest on consumer security deposit, delayed surcharge in case of permanently disconnected consumers among other. Earlier, the JERC had rejected the CED’s proposal of hike in power tariff in Chandigarh.