HYDERABAD: The happiness of the power consumers that the Discoms did not propose any tariff hike for 2023-24 has proved to be short-lived, as the Discoms have now proposed to administer a Rs 12,000 crore shock to them in the form of collection of ‘power purchase true-ups’ charges pending for the last six years from 2016-17 to 2021-22.
Power-purchase true-up charge is equal to the difference between the actual cost of the power and the price at which it was supplied to the consumers. The two Discoms — TSSPDCL and TSNPDCL — filed ‘power purchase true-up’ petitions on Saturday to collect Rs 12,015.46 crore. These true-up charges are in addition to the “distribution true-up’ charges of Rs 4,092 crore proposed in August this year.
With this, the two Discoms proposed to collect an additional amount of Rs 16,107 crore from the consumers. The Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC) has decided to conduct a public hearing for the ‘distribution true-up’ charges on January 18.
Exact burden on consumers to be known after public hearing
The ERC will shortly announce the dates for the public hearing for ‘power purchase true-ups’. The exact burden on consumers will be decided by the ERC after conducting the public hearings. It may be recalled here that the ERC already accorded permission to the Discoms to collect Rs 5,596 crore additional revenue through regular power tariff for the current year 2022-23.
According to sources, the State government spent a whopping Rs 8,790 crore in 2021-22 alone for purchasing the power. Of the Rs 8,790 crore, around 3,800 crore spent for purchasing power during peak summer in 2021-22. Even as there was a shortage of power and high demand for power in summer, the government used to buy power at a cost of Rs 20 per unit and supplied quality power to all categories of consumers in 2021-22 summer, the sources pointed out.
“The average power purchase cost from exchanges is around Rs 9 per unit. However, the Discoms even spent Rs 20 per unit for three to four days during summer in 2021-22 on power purchase,” the sources explained. However, the Discoms supplied power for lesser costs and the difference is now being proposed to be collected from the consumers. The average cost of service is Rs 7.34 in the State. The power purchase true-up charges were arrived at by the Discoms as Rs 12,015.46 crore, after deducting the financial support from the State government and the power bill dues to the tune of Rs 20,841 crore to be collected from government departments. Of the total true-up charges proposed, the TSSPDCL claimed Rs 9,060.80 crore and the TSNPDCL claimed Rs 2,954.66 crore.
The State government has provided an additional support of Rs 7,961 crore in the form of equity to Discoms during the period from 2016-17 to 2019-20. In addition to this, the State government also provided loss funding of Rs 9,326 crore as per the tripartite MoU (Uday Scheme) signed between the State government, Discoms and the Central government for the period from 2016-17 to 2020-21.
Accumulated dues: Rs 20,841 cr
The dues to the Discoms by the government departments are Rs 20,841.03 crore. With the departments not paying the bills, the TSSPDCL transferred Rs 2,206.06 crore Panchayat Raj arrears and Rs 908.33 crore municipalities arrears to the Government Receivable Amount. Likewise, the TSNPDCL transferred an amount of Rs 1,644.13 crore.