Hyderabad: Opposition, energy experts say no to power tariff hike

Hyderabad: Opposition parties, energy experts and other agencies opposed the proposal to hike power tariff, at a public hearing conducted by the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) here on Friday. State Congress president and MP A Revanth Reddy demanded the Commission to regulate the functioning of power distribution companies which were facing huge financial losses. He alleged that Telangana government did not pay the dues owed to the discoms due to which their total debts have been increased to Rs 60,000 crore. The Congress leader took strong objection to the government's proposal to hike the power tariff to overcome the mounting debts of discoms. He questioned the discoms to demand the government pay the long pending dues. Revanth also demanded the Commission to conduct a probe into the fire accident in the hydel power units at Srisailam left bank canal which claimed the lives of a officials and also damaged the expensive equipment.

Meanwhile, the officials of state Energy department claimed that the government had released funds to the discoms more than the budget earmarked every year and has been providing additional funding to the utilities to overcome financial distress.

Energy expert Venugopal objected the discoms proposal to collect true up charges from the electricity consumers along with the hike of tariff from next financial year. Poor consumers would be burdened more by the true up charges if the Commission accepts their proposal, he added.