SHWETA KAMAT
shweta@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Along with projecting to reduce the power tariff for certain category of consumers, the Goa Government has proposed rationalisation of tariffs, removal of slab benefits and the introduction of non-telescopic billing from the financial year 2021-22, with effect from April 1, next year.
The Goa Electricity Department (GED) has submitted its annual Tariff Petition 2021-22 to the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) for consideration and approval. It has invited public suggestions, objections to the petition by January 20, 2021.
The GED is set to suffer a revenue gap of Rs 301.40 crore for FY 2021-22, which is proposed to be met partially through tariff rationalisation and from the budgetary support by the government.
The GED, in its petition submitted that the JERC tariff order for the FY 2020-21, dated May 19, that had approved hike of around 5.31 per cent, which was to be implemented from June 1, could not be done due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, that has resulted in lockdown which affected the economic activities and reduced the income for most of the consumers.
“Hence, in view of the same, the Government of Goa decided to grant subsidy to all the categories of consumers from June 1 to December 31, to nullify the impact of tariff hike and to continue with the tariff approved for FY 2019-20,” the petition mentioned.
“In order to further prevent the consumers from tariff shock, it also proposes to reduce the tariff for certain category of consumers for the FY 2021-22, against the tariff for FY 2020-21,” it added.
Accordingly, the incremental revenue over the existing tariff comes out to be Rs122.75 crore and the net effective revenue gap for FY 2021-22 works out to be Rs178.65 crore, which is proposed to be met through budgetary support from the Government. The incremental revenue from proposed Tariff Rationalisation measures comes out to be 6.39 per cent.
GED has proposed tariff for domestic consumers at Rs 1.40 per kwh unit for 0-100 units, Rs 2.10 per kwh unit for 101-200 units, Rs 2.65 per kwh unit to 201-300 units; Rs 3.45 per kwh unit to 301-400 units and Rs 4 per kwh for power consumption above 401 units. The rates are similar to that of what GED is implementing at present, as against the proposed hiked by JERC.
However, all domestic consumers whose consumption is less than 200 units will fall under telescopic billing approach. The consumers whose consumption is more than 200 units shall fall under the ambit of Non-Telescopic billing approach and shall lose the benefit of first two slabs i.e. 0-100 and 101-200 units for the energy charges.
“Further total monthly consumption more than 200 units shall fall in the respective slab and accordingly applicable energy charges for that respective slab shall be levied on the entire consumption,” GED said.
Also for LT Commercial consumers whose consumption beyond 100 units will lose the benefit of first slab and the LT Industries consumers whose consumption beyond 500 units shall lose the benefit of first 500 units (0-500 units) for the energy charges.
“Under this billing approach the energy consumed is cumulatively billed at one uniform rate for the entire consumption depending on the slab rate in which the consumption falls,” it said.
GED, in this petition, is proposing the implementation of kVAh tariff for high tension (HT) and extra high tension (EHT) consumers. The new billing system will ensure that the consumers who will utilise the power efficiently will be paying less energy charges as compared to others who are not using the power efficiently and the consumers get better power due to improvement in System Stability, Power Quality and Voltage Profile.
