PANJIM: The domestic consumers, representatives of various institutions and NGOs on Wednesday strongly objected to the proposed hike in power tariff by the Electricity Department during a public hearing conducted by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC).
The Electricity Department has proposed an average hike of 6 per cent (15 to 60 paise) in the State. The department says tariff was frozen for the last four years including the Covid pandemic.
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It said the revision in power tariff is the need of the hour.
The public hearing, which was convened by JERC for the State, was held at Panjim. The hearing was chaired by its member Jyoti Prasad.
The department had filed a petition for approval of Annual Performance Report (APR) for financial year 2022-2023, Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) for 2023-2024 and tariff proposal for the year 2023-2024. The hike was proposed to bridge the revenue gap of Rs 483.65 crore.
Domestic consumer Eddie Tavares said, “Don’t squeeze the domestic power consumers. Hike the tariff, but put an end to the voltage fluctuations and variation in costs. The engineers have to consider losses and save on that before burdening the consumers.”
MRF representative Suresh Babu said, “In the Last two years we have witnessed a hike in the landing cost of electricity by 20 per cent. kVAH billing has cost us 22 paisa hike per unit in recent times and to add to our woes, the incentives, which industries got, too disappeared from the bills.”
“FPPCA has gone up by 1.25 paise. The proposed hike has to be withdrawn. Most industries are limping back to normalcy from the pandemic and won’t be able to take more beating,” he added.
Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) representative Gerard D’Mello said, “Estimates and actuals are too far away from the targets. Electricity demand is much higher, and will double in the next decade. But on the contrary, power reliability is poor. We had 800 hours of no power for the last financial year.”
Justifying the hike in power tariff, Chief Electrical Engineer Stephen D’Souza said, “Understand that the power sector needs lots of improvement. Increase in tariff is the need of the hour, if the industries and living of the common man has to improve. We are still falling short of Rs 348 crore from achieving break even and therefore revision in power tariff is inevitable. The tariff was frozen for the last four years.”
JERC member Jyoti Prasad said, “We have noted down public concerns. We have given time to the Electricity Department to reply to these concerns and send a petition for approval to the Commission, within the stipulated time.”
