‘Discoms still not able to turnaround finances, achieve goals’

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission RERC ) has approved an average 11% hike in power tariffs across sectors, excluding small and medium industry, on Thursday. The hike is the highest for the agriculture sector at 18% followed by domestic consumers. The power hike has come after three-and-a-half-years and will be effective from February 1.For domestic consumers, tariff has been hiked by a maximum 90 paise for the first 50 units (see chart). The maximum hike per unit for non-domestic consumer is 50 paise per unit. On an average, a domestic consumer using about 500 units will have to shell out 80 paise more per unit.There is no change in the tariff for small and medium industry. The commission has also revised fixed charges for all consumers.The hike for agriculture consumers will be borne by the government as it had promised not to hike power charges for the next five years.The new tariffs will bring in an additional annual revenue of Rs 4,817 crore for discoms. Electricity commission chairman Shrimat Pandey said the discoms would incur a net loss of Rs 7,142 crore after subsidy in the current financial year and had petitioned the commission for a tariff hike.Along with the revision of power tariffs, the commission has created a new category for electric vehicle charging stations. They will be charged at a rate of Rs 6 per unit.He claimed that the tariff hike would not affect about 70 lakh consumers, including those in the agriculture sector, out of the 1.4 crore consumers. It has exempted about 16 lakh BPL and Astha card holders from the revision.The commission said the hike had become imperative in the absence of a tariff revision for over three years. The discoms would have been forced to take loans from commercial entities which would have put an additional interest burden on its finances. This would have adversely affected quality improvement programmes of discoms, the commission noted.This would have adversely affected quality improvement programmes of discoms, the commission noted. “Discoms are still not able to turnaround the finances and achieve goals for improvement in performance as envisaged under UDAY as well as the Rajasthan State Electricity Distribution Management Responsibility Act, 2016,” the commission noted.