Hyderabad, September 30: The State Government is all set to increase the power tariff for domestic consumers.
The State Government had earlier constituted a sub-committee of ministers to study the power surcharge and the subsidies. However, the sub-committee could not submit a report to the government primarily due to the Telangana strike.
The Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC) is going to conduct an enquiry on the proposals submitted by the Discom on surcharge. The Discom has proposed that the surcharge burden of Rs 8,000 Crore from 2008-2009 to 2010-2011 be collected from the consumers. Of this, Rs 2,000 crore surcharges has to be collected from the domestic consumers.
After going through the suggestions and objections the ERC would take a final decision on the extent of collection in the form of charges.
The state government has decided to sanction a subsidy to meet the 2008-2009 financial year burdens on the domestic surcharge. But N Kiran Kumar Reddy government was not in favour of extending any subsidy to the consumers for bearing the surcharge burden emanating from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 for various reasons.
The Chief Minister has already hinted that the consumers must be ready for hike in power charges. Now in the wake of the heavy financial losses suffered due to Telangana strike, the government was planning to affect a hike in domestic power tariff.
In addition to the surcharge criteria, the government has been burdened by the strike which crippled the coal production in the Singareni Collieries Company Limited which in turn affected the thermal power production in various plants. To compensate for the loss of coal output, the government had been buying electricity and coal from other States and Centre. This has resulted in a further financial burden on the State.
Therefore, in the given circumstances, the government plans to recover the losses by increasing the power tariff for domestic sector.
——Agencies