PANJIM: Giving a major relief to nearly 6.09 lakh consumers, the Electricity Department has proposed ‘No’ further hike in power tariff for the financial year 2017-18, in its submission before the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC). 

The Electricity Department would be spending approximately Rs 1330.98 crore on purchase of 3998 million units of power for the ongoing financial year. 

The Electricity Department has submitted its tariff Determination for Financial year (FY) 2017-18 petition to JERC, on which the public hearing has been called on Thursday. 

“It is submitted that Electricity Department is into regulatory regime under JERC from FY 2011-12 onwards and so far has got tariff revision that is 11.8 per cent in 2012, 7.6 per cent in 2014, 14 per cent in 2015 and 4.85 per cent in 2016. However, Electricity Department feels that considering the past trend of the tariff hike, it doesn’t want to over burden the consumers by tariff hike and shock,” the petition states. 

“Electricity Department submits that to recover the total proposed cumulative Revenue gap of Rs 149 crore till FY 2017-18, no hike is proposed by Department and the revenue gap will be met through budgetary support to be provided by the State government,” the petition adds. 

“Therefore the Electricity Department is not proposing any tariff hike in FY 2017-18,” it states further. 

The department proposes to continue with the existing tariff as per which the consumers with monthly consumption of 0-100 units will have a fixed charge of Rs 20 and Rs 1.30 per unit (KWH). For the consumption between 101-200 units, the charge would be Rs 1.90/kWh, for 201-300 units fixed charge of Rs 45 and energy charges of Rs 2.40/kWh, 301-400 units it is Rs 3.10/kWh and for consumption above 401 units it would be Rs 3.60/kWh. 

“Since there is no hike sought, Electricity Department proposes no change in any of the tariff category and is of the view to maintain the tariff structure as approved by the Commission 2016-17,” the petition states. 

However, the Electricity Department has proposed that the separate treatment for educational institutions under higher tension (HT) category to be considered in line with the treatment provided in the lower tension (LT) category, to provide benefit to the larger sections of students. 

It has also urged the Commission, for determination of category of tariff for hotel industry based on the certificate issued by the tourism department to avoid the confusion related to applicability of tariff under commercial category or under concessional tariff. 

The department’s revenue requirement for the ongoing FY stands at Rs 1845.32 crore, of which Rs 1330.98 crore would be spent on purchase of 3998.32 million units of power. It has proposed spending of Rs 254.24 crore on its employees in form of salaries, pension and other cost. 

The JERC has approved 3494.72 million units as sale of power to 6.09 lakh consumers and 24.04 lakh kW as connected load for the current FY.