Big relief for power consumers

Hyderabad: The power consumers in the Telangana state got a big relief from the power tariff hike this year. The Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TGERC) has rejected the Discoms proposal to enhance the power tariff for above 300 units of power consumption in the domestic sector.

It may be mentioned here that the power utilities have recently filed ARR (Annual Revenue Requirement) requesting the Telangana Electricity Regulatory Commission to increase the fixed rates for domestic power consumers above 300 units and increase power charges for all HT power consumers. In the ARR for the current financial year (2024-25), the Discoms have proposed to revise the charges in all three categories aiming to get additional income of Rs 1,200 crore to overcome the revenue deficit.

Commission Chairman Sriranga Rao said that there would be no change in tariff for the entire domestic category and also removed monthly minimum energy charges.

In the non- domestic commercial category, the fixed charges of the LT category have been reduced from Rs 60 per kW (kilo Watt) to Rs 30 per kW for consumption up to 50 units. Monthly minimum energy charge was also reduced from 65 to 50 per month for single phase supply and 200 to 100 per cent month three phase supply.

The Commission Chairman explained that there was no charge in tariff for agriculture category and an increase in HP of Horticulture and Nurseries from 15 HP to 20 HP to provide free power to more farming communities. In a bid to promote EV (electric vehicles), the commission reduced the fixed charges from Rs 50 per kW to zero.

The TGERC directed the Discoms to expedite the initiative towards Demand Side Management ( DSM) and submit the report to the commission and also asked the power utilities to comply with standard of performance (SoP) regulations.

The commission approved ARR of Rs 54,183 crore as against the total of Rs 57,728 crore proposed by the Discoms for the year 2024-2025. The commission also approved the revenue gap of Rs 11,156 crore as against Rs 13,022 crore proposed through the enhanced tariff in the ARR. The subsidy commitment by the state government has also increased by Rs 2,347 crore than the previous year which is an increase of around 26 per cent, the commission said in the order. The total subsidy commitment for this year was Rs 1,14,999 crore.