THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State Electricity Regulatory Commission has rejected a KSEB proposal for round-the-year power regulations and also sliced the revenue gap for the fiscal projected by the state-run power utility by almost half. Issuing orders on Saturday on the petition on Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARC) and Expected Revenue from Charges (ERC) for 2012-2013 submitted by the KSEB in January, the Commission rejected the proposal for power regulations throughout the year on the grounds that it will result in tariff hike.
In January, the KSEB had proposed to regulate supply at normal tariff to HT/EHT consumers and LT consumers other than domestic to 85 percent and to curtail normal tariff-based supply to the domestic category to 300 units a month. (The present power restrictions imposed in the state were a later development and not connected with the January proposal).
Extra consumption was to be charged at existing market rates. But the Commission noted that the ARR&ERC petition was a ‘skewed one.’ ‘The Commission is of the view that the present petition is not a straight forward ARR&ERC proposal, but a petition with an embedded tariff revision,’ the Commission said in its order. (The KSEB later submitted a tariff petition in March which is being studied by the Commission).
REVENUE GAP
The KSEB had projected a revenue gap of `3,240.25 crore for 2012-2013, but the Commission has sliced it to `1,889.15 crore. The Commission approved a revenue requirement of `7,986.39 crore and expected revenue of `6,097.24 crore. The KSEB had projected revenue requirement and expected revenue of `9,638.12 crore and `6,397.87 crore respectively for the current fiscal.