Faced with a huge subsidy burden of free power supply to farmer, the Telangana Government was gearing itself up for imposing a steep hike in power tariff. As the officials were busy in preparing aggregate revenue requirement and retail tariff proposals for the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, official sources said that the power subsidy for farmers will cost a whopping Rs7640 crore next fiscal. Officials said that agricultural pump sets would consume 12600 million units during the year.
However, wary of political repercussions Telangana Rashtra Samiti Government has decided not to change the present tariff for the household consuming up to 50 units a month. The quantum of hike for the households consuming more than 50 units was yet to be decided but the indications were hike will be substantial given the twin factors of sky rocketing cost of purchase of power to meet the gap and the subsidy to the farmers. The average cost of power purchase was Rs5.37 per unit and the average cost domestic consumers were paying was Rs3.89 per unit.