BENGALURU:A day after polling for the state assembly elections ended, electricity consumers across Karnataka are likely to receive a jolt. Hiked power tariffs may be announced by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) on Monday.
The commission, which oversees the power sector in the state, regularly announces new tariffs every year in the month of April. But this time, they could not do so because of the election Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in force. However, the commission had made it clear that it would pronounce the new tariff order as soon as polling concluded.
Electricity Supply Companies across the state have asked for sizeable hikes in the price per unit this year. The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) has asked for an 82 paise hike per unit across all types of consumers.
As part of the annual process of revising tariffs, the KERC had conducted public hearings across major cities and in Bengaluru, the proposal by BESCOM was strongly opposed by individuals, citizen groups, resident welfare associations and industry as well who had said that the scale of load shedding and unscheduled power cuts by BESCOM had severely affected operations and that for the quality of power being supplied, it was unjustified to have such high costs.
Last year, the five major ESCOMs had sought an increase of Rs 1.48 per unit and the KERC had allowed a hike of 48 paise per unit, which is one of the highest hikes announced in a single year in the past 5 years.