THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has urged the KSEB to approach the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) seeking a temporary arrangement to enter into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). This comes after the commission recently rejected a PPA. If this doesn’t happen, the board will be forced to go for further tariff hike soon. It may be recalled that the KSEB has imposed a 10 paise surcharge with effect from Thursday.
On Wednesday, 899 KSEB employees retired. With the rest busy with retirement ceremonies, KSEB came out with an order to increase the surcharge from June 1 at the eleventh hour, creating confusion.
This led Electricity Minister K Krishnankutty to convene a meeting on Thursday with stakeholders, including the board’s financial advisor R Biju. It is learnt KSEB is unhappy with KSERC for sanctioning only a 10 paise surcharge rise when the actual demand was for 15-paise hike.
The minister’s office said the 10 paise surcharge is only for a month, which implied that it will go up further. “The KSERC had held public sittings and sought KSEB’s views on going for a surcharge hike. Accordingly, it was decided to go for a 10 paise hike which is the lowest rate compared to other states.
In April, the commission came out with a formula to go for a 12.65 paise surcharge hike per unit towards additional expenses incurred to buy extra power at Rs 26.55 crore. But it decided to bring down the surcharge to 10 paise,” said a power department official. Recently, the KSERC cancelled a PPA with a private multi-national power company where per unit of power was bought for Rs 3.96- Rs 4.26. Now KSEB cuts a sorry figure as it is forced to pay compensation of at least Rs 2 per unit.
A trade union leader in KSEB told TNIE that in place of the cancelled PPA, the board is now forced to buy power at Rs 7-8 per unit from the same MNC.
“When PPA is cancelled, the board has to pay compensation. At the same time, we need to purchase additional power as demand is very high. Currently, surplus power is available only with the same power company. So they are in an advantageous position, with the consumers going to feel the heat in terms of power surcharge hike and also cancellation of PPA,” said the trade union leader.