No hike in power tariff in UP
Insight Online News
Lucknow, July 23 : In a major relief to power consumers in Uttar Pradesh, the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) has not raised the electricity rates for any category for its 3.16 crore consumers. The maximum slab for domestic consumers in urban areas have been reduced from Rs 7 to Rs 6.50 per unit.
Energy charges for the consumers under Noida Power Company have been reduced by 10 per cent. Around 1.2 crore consumers have been added in the slab of Rs 3 per unit, thus giving a relief of 35 paisa per unit.
The UPERC finalised the tariff order of the UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) on Saturday and issued the new tariff order.
Of the total 3.16 crore power consumers in the state, there are 2.70 crore domestic consumers.
UPERC Secretary Sanjay Kumar Singh said, “There is no increase in tariff for any consumer category. The commission has undertaken tariff rationalisation wherein the slabs have been reduced from 80 to 59 by merging the higher tariff slabs with lower one and merging some of the categories.”
He said that as a result the highest tariff slab of most of the consumer categories now cease to exist.
“This Tariff Rationalisation will lead to economic growth of the state besides reducing the cross-subsidy burden of commercial and industrial consumers,” he said.
As per the tariff order the maximum slab of Rs 7 per unit for the domestic consumers has been abolished.
Now the maximum slab for the domestic consumers in urban areas will be Rs 6.5 per unit and it will be Rs 5.5 per unit in rural areas.
Till now the per unit charge for the domestic consumers varied between Rs 5 to Rs 7 depending on the power consumption.
Singh said, “The commission, by following the normative Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) Loss of 10.67 per cent against 17.05 per cent claimed by the UPPCL has ensured that the billing, collection and other performance in-efficiencies of the discoms are not rewarded and good paying consumers are not punished by paying extra.”
He said that the commission has also not allowed any expenditure towards smart meters as claimed by the licensees as the roll out plan approved by the commission clearly stated that this was to be funded through efficiency gains by the licensee in terms of reduction of commercial losses.
The secretary said, “In order to promote multi point connections in the high rise apartments, the commission has abolished 5 per cent additional charge given to the builders on single point connection for expenses towards supply of electricity, distribution loss, electrical maintenance, billing, accounting and audit.”
He said that the cross subsidy surcharge (CSS) has been reduced or retained as compared to existing CSS level.
“The commission has approved the Green Energy Tariff at the rate of Rs 0.54 per kWh in the state for all consumer categories except domestic and agriculture.
“The Green Energy Tariff will be voluntary, that is the consumer will have the option to opt for it. Any consumer opting for green energy tariff has to be supplied with renewable energy as per discoms’ RPO (renewable purchase obligation),” he said.
UNIINDIA
