Any tariff hike to hurt those who use over 300 units: TGSPDCL
HYDERABAD: TGSPDCL CMD Musharraf Faruqui on Wednesday said that the Discoms have not proposed any hike in power tariff for the poor and middle class.
“Discoms propose to increase fixed charges slightly for those who consume more than 300 units per month,” he said.
Attending the public hearing conducted by the Electricity Regulatory Commission on the Aggregate Revenue Requirements (ARRs) for 2024-25, Faruqui said the power requirement touched a record 15,623 MW in the state. He said that the peak power demand touched 9,910 MW in the TGSPDCL per day.
Faruqui explained that the distribution losses were reduced to 4.75% and the AT and C losses were reduced to 19.03%. “The gap between the actual cost of service and aggregate revenue requirement was reduced to 0.81 paise from the earlier Rs 1.08 per unit,” he said, adding that the Discoms were getting a revenue of Rs 6.45 per unit. He said that the Discom introduced the TGAIMS App to bring transparency in maintenance and repair works.
Faruqui said that the Discoms proposed to exempt LT-EV charging stations from paying fixed charges. This decision was taken to encourage green energy, he said.
The Discoms proposed to raise an additional income of Rs 1,200 crore for 2024-25. While filing the ARRs, the revenue deficit was projected to be Rs 14,222 crore for the year. However, the Discoms expected that the state government would announce a subsidy amount of Rs 13,000 crore. With this, the Discoms proposed to raise Rs 1,200 crore to overcome the deficit by increasing the power tariff for HT category consumers.
However, power expert M Venugopala Rao pointed out that already seven months of the financial year have passed and the tariff hike would be applicable for the next five months.
In such a case, the tariff burden for next financial year would be over Rs 2,000 crore, he pointed out.
Venugopala Rao alleged that for purchasing renewable energy, the power utilities were backing thermal plants. With this, they are showing 23,367 million units as surplus power for this year and another 42,932 million units surplus power for next year.
The lopsided policies of the government were responsible for the huge revenue deficit, Venugopal Rao alleged. He pointed out that the burden on consumers this year was not just Rs 1,200 crore, as the Discoms were yet to impose Rs 13,000 crore true-up charges.