HYDERABAD: For the first time after the formation of Telangana State, the government has imposed a hefty burden of Rs 1,813 crore on the people in the form of RTC fares and power tariff hike. While the RTC fare hike will come into effect from June 27, the power tariff hike will be applicable from July 1.
A day after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao hinted at the decision to administer the twin shock, the Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved a proposal from power distribution companies (Discoms) to revise power tariff to raise an additional revenue of Rs 1,527 crore for the year 2016-17. Domestic consumers using less than 100 units per month have been spared from the tariff hike.
Domestic power categories have been conveniently divided into three categories from this year. The consumers will have to shell out more money according to their power consumption.
The government has now introduced telescopic system of billing in each category. Earlier there were no separate telescopic and non-telescopic billing systems, ERC officials said, while announcing the tariff hike late on Thursday night.
They hurriedly announced the hike as it was mandatory to announce the new tariff at least one week before the implementation of the new tariff order.
Though, the Discoms proposed to collect an additional revenue of Rs 1,958 crore while filing the annual revenue requirement (ARRs), the ERC brought some changes to bring down the burden to Rs 1,527 crore.
This is because of two reasons. One is that the new tariff will come into effect from July 1 instead of April 1. The delay was due to delay in approving the tariff order and filing of ARRs. The second reason is that the ERC reduced the power purchase cost proposed by the Discoms.
Transport minister P Mahender Reddy announced the bus fare hike aimed at raising an additional revenue of Rs 286 crore. He attributed the revision of bus fare to the huge loss accumulated by the state-owned transport corporation. This is the first time that RTC charges are revised in Telangana. The fares were revised last time in 2013 by the government of erstwhile AP.