HYDERABAD: Be prepared, your power bill might increase or decrease every three months from next year. The power tariff revision will be done on a quarterly basis as the state government has decided to join the central government's Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojna (UDAY).
Recently, Union minister of state for energy Piyush Goyal and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao held discussions on UDAY and the state decided to join UDAY. The state will sign an MoU with the Centre soon on the scheme. According to sources in the energy department, the state government will take over the 75 per cent of the total debts of two Discoms which are estimated at
` 8,991 crore in three equal annual instalments. This is intended to improve the financial health of the Discoms.
However, after joining UDAY, the state has to fulfil some conditions which include improving the efficiency of Discoms, reducing the cost of service and quarterly revision of power tariff. “If fuel or operational costs go up, then the prices will be raised on quarterly basis,” an official said. “People have become accustomed to the increase or decrease in petrol prices. The power tariff too would be on similar lines,” sources said.
The benefits to the state for joining UDAY is that it will get funds for augmenting power transmission and for the Power For All (PFA) scheme. But, these funds will be released only after the state fulfils the conditions laid down in UDAY, which include quarterly revision of power tariff. It means that there will not be power tariff hike once a year as at present.
The state has already reduced the transmission losses to nearly 4 per cent and planned to reduce it further. The only benefit for the consumers is that they will get 24X7 power supply and quality power. The Centre has recently enhanced the deadline for states to join UDAY till March next year.