BHUBANESWAR:In a major relief to power consumers, the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has spared them from tariff hike for 2018-19. The regulator has allowed a special annual rebate for domestic consumers who pay their bill in time every month during the financial year.In a bid to promote cashless transaction among the consumers, the commission has allowed one per cent rebate over and above the normal rebate for digital payment of energy bills.
“A special rebate is also allowed to consumers (low transmission single phase) in addition to monthly rebate at the end of the financial year, if the bill is paid without fail within due date every month. The rebate for March will be doubled in case of special rebate,” said OERC Director (Regulatory Affairs) Priyabrat Patnaik.
The rural consumers will continue to get a special rebate of 5 paise per unit in addition to the existing rebate of 10 paise for prompt payment, he added.Though the opposition political parties have been demanding free power to farmers for irrigation and power at cheaper rate to agriculture-based industries, the regulator had to keep the tariff at the existing rate without any subvention from the State Government.
“The distribution companies cannot deny new single phase connection upto 5 kw load to new consumers on the plea of non-availability of transformer capacity,” OERC said in the tariff order.
Prospective small consumers requiring new single phase connection upto 5 kw load has to pay flat charge of Rs 1500 as service connection charge which excludes security deposit and processing fee of Rs 25, Patnaik said.As per the existing tariff rate, consumers are charged Rs 2.50 per unit for the first 50 units, Rs 4.30 per unit for consumption from 50 to 200 units and Rs 5.30 per unit for 200 to 400 units and Rs 5.70 per unit for consumption above 400 units in a month.
The monthly fixed charge for BPL consumers under Kutir Jyoti programme has remained unchanged at Rs 80 for 30 units per month.The average bulk supply price (BSP) of Gridco has been reduced from Rs 2.77 per unit in 2017-18 to Rs 2.76 per unit in 2018-19 against its demand for Rs 3.53 per unit.
However, the Commission has increased the average power purchase price from the existing Rs 2.46 per unit to Rs 2.59 per unit for 2018-19. The State trading utility has asked the Commission to approve Rs 2.84 per unit as power purchase cost for the coming fiscal. While the four distribution companies had asked for Rs 11,265.90 crore as their annual revenue requirement for 2018-19 financial year, the regulator approved an amount of Rs 9562.63 crore.
