
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: From Saturday, consumers need to pay less for their power bills as the fuel surcharge has been reduced by nine paise per unit. The overall fuel surcharge, which currently stands at 19 paise per unit, has been revised to 10 paise per unit with effect from February 1.
According to a note from Electricity Minister K Krishnankutty’s office, the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) norms allow licensees – including KSEB – to collect a maximum of 10 paise per unit from consumers on account of fluctuation in fuel prices. The regulations also allow the state power utility to collect additional fuel surchage, subject to KSERC approval. KSEB was collecting 10 paise per unit under an automatic recovery mechanism for recovery of additional expenditure incurred on power purchases in November 2024.
In an interim order issued last November, KSERC allowed KSEB to collect an additional nine paise per unit. In effect, consumers were paying 19 paise per unit additionally, up to January 31.
However, from February 1, only the fuel surcharge of 10 paise per unit through automatic recovery mechanism will be in place. Accordingly, the overall fuel surcharge came down from 19 paise per unit to 10 paise per unit, the note from the minister’s office explained.
Interestingly, KSEB had sought approval to collect 17 paise per unit for recouping unrecovered fuel surcharge for the April-July 2024 period. However, KSERC had allowed KSEB to collect only nine paise per unit till January 31.
Tariff hike
Last December, KSERC had approved an average tariff hike of 16 paise per unit for domestic consumers, effective from December 5, 2024, to March 31, 2025.
As per the tariff revision, consumers will have to pay an additional 12 paise from April 1, 2025, taking the overall hike to 28 paise per unit on an average in the 2025-26 fiscal. The fixed charge was also increased for domestic consumers till the completion of the 2025-26 fiscal.