To understand just how much Indians pay for power, TOI studied power tariffs for 52 of India’s 53 million-plus urban agglomerations based on the latest tariff orders of state electricity regulatory boards that cover over 50 such cities. The only city we had to leave out for dearth of data was Srinagar. Our analysis shows that consumers in Maharashtra have the highest power bills across all categories of consumption while Delhi has the most progressive tariff structure, rewarding low electricity consumption while levying exponentially higher fares for higher rates of power usage.

400 UNITS

900 UNITS

1,400 UNITS

All tariffs as on September 18, 2018

To understand just how much Indians pay for power, TOI studied power tariffs for 52 of India’s 53 million-plus urban agglomerations based on the latest tariff orders of state electricity regulatory boards that cover over 50 such cities. The only city we had to leave out for dearth of data was Srinagar. Our analysis shows that consumers in Maharashtra have the highest power bills across all categories of consumption while Delhi has the most progressive tariff structure, rewarding low electricity consumption while levying exponentially higher fares for higher rates of power usage. Here are the details...Delhi’s tariff structure is the one best designed to incentivise power saving, giving big subsidies to people with low consumption while making excessive users pay more than many other cities.Subscribers in Delhi who consume up to 400 units pay as low as 500 in energy costs (excluding fixed charges), far lower than any of the other cities analysed.Though, Ranchi is the second cheapest in this slab, but users there pay 1,450 for a similar rate of consumption, about three times that of Delhi.At a higher consumption level of 900 units, Delhi no longer remains the cheapest with consumers in Ranchi paying the lowest rates at variable charges. In contrast, Mumbaikars buying electricity from Tata Power have to pay 9,873, the highest among these cities. Once again, cities in Maharashtra dominate the top of the list.For this level of power usage, Delhi is not even among the five cheapest cities. This class of consumers would pay 6,175 as variable charges in Jamshedpur, about 1,200 less than in Delhi. The other cheap cities at this consumption level are in Jharkhand, Gujarat and Chandigarh while people in Maharashtra, led by Mumbaikars who buy electricity from Tata, pay the most.