The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) will hear the review petitions, separately filed by Chandigarh Electricity Department and Chandigarh Renewal Energy Science and Technology Society’s (CREST) challenging the Commission’s decision on power tariff on June 24.
While Chandigarh Electricity Department (CED) had filed review petition challenging tariff orders passed by JERC, CREST filed a petition challenging the Commission’s decision of fixing low tariff of Rs1.13 per unit for selling solar power.While talking to The Pioneer, MP Singh, UT Superintending Engineer said, “The Electricity Department has filed a review petition challenging orders passed by JERC dated April 11, 2014. The review petition is pertaining to revenue gap, recovery of arrears among other significant issues.”
The JERC had turned down UT Electricity Department’s proposal of 21 percent hike in power tariff and had issued a number of directions to CED.On the same day ie June 24, the Commission will hear another petition filed by CED regarding the manpower requirement in the Department.In a petition filed in February this year, the UT Electricity Department requested the Commission to approve the manpower requirement for CED as per a study conducted by a firm, informed Singh.
According to the study, Electricity Department has 961 employees against the total sanctioned strength of 1668. The Department proposed 1394 more employees including 795 in-house and 599 outsourced.Meanwhile, the JERC will also held hearing of review petition filed by CREST on June 24. Santosh Kumar, CREST CEO said, “The CREST has filed the review petition challenging Commission’s order for fixing low tariff for selling solar power to Chandigarh Electricity Department.”The JERC had in its orders passed in April approved the selling of solar power to UT Electricity Department at the rate of Rs1.13 per unit, as against Rs8.75 per unit which the CREST had demanded in a petition filed on behalf of UT Department of Science and Technology.
“The Commission’s decision will jeopardize the future of solar power projects. The Commission has not considered any capital cost for the purpose of calculation of return on equity, depreciation, and interest on loan capital for the purpose of tariff determination. And, the tariff is fixed at low rate of Rs1.13 only,” added Santosh.
The JERC’s decision was seen as a major setback to CREST’s plan for promoting solar energy and roping in private sector for the green initiatives in the union territory of Chandigarh. Disgruntled over JERC’s decision, the UT Department of Science and Technology had also shot off a letter to Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, urging to intervene in the issue.In past two years, the CREST has installed solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plants on government buildings which, together, have a capacity of producing 2790 KWp electricity.The aim of installation of these SPV power plants is to produce electricity that could be put to use in the buildings, thus cutting down on the power bills.