The State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) in its revised tariff rate for year 2013-14 has hiked the power tariff for domestic users by 15.99 per cent as compared to year-2012-13 with tariff coming to Rs 4.80 per unit.
SERC determines tariff for retail supply of electricity within the State, and accordingly, the commission has fixed the tariff for supply of electricity by HPSEBl (Board) to consumers of the State for the year 2013-14 with effect from April 1, 2013. Commission approved revenue expenses and revenue income of the State electricity board for 2013-14 for tariff purposes. It said that total expenses including past payables is Rs 4609.09 crore while income from sale of surplus power outside the State should be Rs 149.61 crore.
The commission has provided a surplus, even though a marginal amount, to ensure that board has no reason to incur losses and achieve a turnaround in future under financial restructuring programme of State and Centre.
Commission cited reasons for tariff increase as power purchase and employees cost of the board. It said that a positive sign is that there is no significant impact on tariff of the current year expense.
“Average cost of power purchase per unit is almost same as last year because Hydel power stations are cheaper. Also employees cost has stabilised due to increase of business volume and no more revision arrears liabilities pending. The increase is largely due to old liabilities,” commission said in its report.
It further added that Rs 270 crore as arrears and impact of pay revision with effect from January 1, 2006 paid in 2011-12, Rs 191 crores and arrears of retrospective revision of tariff of Central Government.
It also blamed for non-recovery of Rs 100 crore as survey and investigation charges incurred by Board on hydel projects allotted to developers. Commission fixed the average tariff for all the consumers as Rs 5.20 per unit.
Against this, the tariff for life line consumption is only 68 perccent and for the domestic consumption it is about 82 percent, taking average tariff of Rs. 5.20 per unit.
State Government is giving direct subsidy to the consumers, for which Rs 320 crores have been approved for 2013-14 against estimate of Rs 270 crores in 2012-13.
Commission had made a separate category of consumers that is BPl category consuming up to 40 units per month but has noticed that although there are about 2.5 lakh BPl families in the State, only about 2,000 consumers, who are only new consumers under Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojna, are getting benefited. Tariff for this category has not been increased and it is about 68 per cent of average tariff.
State has 17, 81, 586 domestic consumers with per month per consumer consumption coming upto 82.12 units. Commission has fixed Transmission and Distribution (T and D) loss reduction targets for each year during 2011-12 to 2013-14.
Against target of 12.55 percent Board has reported achievement of 13.43 percent. Commission has said that average shortage of power in the region is about 10 per cent and thus allowed HPSEBl to make additional power purchase of about 500 MUs, which is about 6 per cent more than its total requirement and keep it as reserve available round the year.