TIRUPATI: The Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) on Wednesday released the new tariff for retail sale of electricity for the financial year 2022-23. Starting April 1, domestic consumers will have to shell out an extra Rs 0.91/unit if their monthly consumption exceeds 30 units (31-75 units) and Rs 1.57 per unit if they consume more than 125 units (126-225 units) of electricity.
APERC chairman Justice (retd) CV Nagarjuna Reddy along with commission members T Ram Singh, P Rajagopal Reddy, secretary Rama Krishna, and director Rajabapaiah released the new tariff here on Wednesday.
Explaining the new tariffs, Nagarjuna Reddy said, “At present, the power tariff for a consumption of 0-30 units per month is Rs 1.45 per unit (KW/hr). It will now increase Rs 1.90 per unit.”
Stating that the commission has approved the hike in electricity tariffs after examining the proposals submitted by the three distribution licensees—APSPDCL, APEPDCL and APCPDCL—the chairman said, “The increase in tariff will bring an additional revenue of approximately Rs 1,400 crore to the discoms.”
Comparing the power tariff with the neighbouring states, Nagarjuna Reddy said, the approved hike is reasonable and added, “The tariff for consumption of up to 75 units is much below 50 per cent of the average cost of supply (Rs 6.98 per unit). The number of consumers under this category account for 50 per cent of total domestic consumers.”
The three power distribution companies have projected an Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) of Rs 45,398.66 crore with a combined deficit of Rs 10,932.99 crore at current tariff. The deficit is projected to be Rs 10,045.61 crore with the proposed tariff hike.
“The discoms proposed to bridge this gap with full cost tariff recoveries as per the GO Rt 161 and showed a net gap ‘zero’ in their fillings. While many stakeholders expressed apprehensions over the proposal, the APERC, after due diligence, has determined the ARR for the 3 discoms at Rs 45,972.70 crore with a net deficit of Rs 11,123.21 crore after taking into consideration the additional revenue generated due to tariff rationalisation approved for the domestic class of consumers,’’ the chairman said.
The combined average cost of service per unit of the 3 discoms has increased to Rs 6.98 per unit from Rs 6.82/unit . The discoms proposed to merge minor and major sub-categories under the commercial and others-II category. As the proposal simplifies the tariff structure, the Commission accepted the same.
Considering the requests of several stakeholders, the APERC fixed the power tariff for the Goshalas at Rs 3.85 per unit. On the other hand, APERC rejected the requests from aqua hatcheries for tariff reduction in view of the financial position of the discoms. However, the concessional tariff for captive poultry feed mixing plants not covered under GST will be extended in this financial year as well.
The Commission has also changed the definition of ‘Corporate Farmer’. As per the new definition, a corporate farmer is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 or under any previous company law, which undertakes farming as an activity, or a partnership firm undertaking farming activities. Thus, a big relief is extended to farmers paying income tax as they are also included in the free power supply category.
Portal for regularisation of additional loads
As the discoms are utilising significant human resources to collect penalties from consumers for having additional connected loads, the Commission has directed them to maintain IT resources and provide a facility on their websites for consumers to apply for regularisation of their additional loads.