In a respite to electricity consumers of Chandigarh in the times of Covid-19 pandemic, there will be no hike in power tariff for the current financial year 2020-21.
The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission has approved no change in power tariff, in an order issued on Tuesday. The decision will be a big relief for around 2.25 lakh power consumers of Chandigarh.
While there will be no increase in power tariff, the JERC has also directed the Chandigarh Electricity Department to stop recovery of FPPCA (fuel and power purchase cost adjustment) charges from all consumer categories starting from April 1, 2020 onwards till further orders of the Commission.
Also, to promote the use of electric vehicles, the Commission has introduced a single-part tariff for electric vehicle charging stations where the demand or fixed charges have been removed and the energy charges have been rationalized. The energy charges have been reduced from Rs 4 per kWh to Rs 3.80 kWh.
The Chandigarh Electricity Department, in its power tariff petition had not proposed power tariff hike for the current financial year 2020-21.
While the UT Electricity Department had in its petition proposed a cumulative revenue surplus of Rs 198.98 cr till the FY 2020-21, the JERC has determined a cumulative revenue surplus of Rs 365.11 cr till the FY 2020-21 at existing tariff.
Last time, there was hike in power tariff in financial year 2018-19 in the city. At that time, the tariff was increased from Rs 2.55 to Rs 2.75 in the slab of 0-150 units for domestic consumers while there was no change in charges for slab of 151-400 units.
Of the 2.25 lakh power consumers, 1.75 lakh are residential users in the city. Many consumers including industrial and commercial are already facing financial crisis due to lockdown amid Coronavirus pandemic.
MONTHLY BILLING SYSTEM
The JERC, in its order, directed the UT Electricity Department to implement monthly billing system for all the categories except agriculture pumping system in the union territory.
“The Commission suggests that the implementation of monthly billing may be done in a phased manner so that billing of certain number of consumers be shifted to monthly billing cycle every month/quarter. The petitioner is directed to submit monthly compliance report to the Commission for monitoring,” the order stated.
The JERC has also directed the UT Electricity Department to expedite the work on execution of the energy audit. The Commission also asked the UT Department to submit a detailed report of voltage wise T&D losses along with the next tariff petition.