Hyderabad, June 10: The industrial sector in the state may face the prospect of a rise in power tariff besides the tariff hike already proposed before the AP Elelectricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) for 201011.
The power utilities are planning to approach the state government to ask how they could mobilise Rs.1,646 crore loss which had accumulated over the last two years on account of increase in fuel charges by the power producers. According to sources, the power utilities are confident that the state government would reimburse upto Rs.500 crore leviable on domestic users since the government had promised them in the past that it would bear any additional burden on domestic sector which comes in the form fuel surcharge hike. As the policy on agriculture is clear no imposts of any kind on farmers to be allowed the only option that the utilities have is to burden the nondomestic and nonagriculture sectors, that is industries. With the APERC making it clear for the power utilities that they should show how they would realise the money, the managing directors of all discoms and that of the APTransco met on Wednesday and decided to approach the state government to learn from it how it is going to bail them out. After the government makes it stand clear, they would approach the APERC with its proposals of how to raise the money, a source in the APTransco said.
“We have called another meeting on June 14 to discuss the finer points of how the burden could be passed on to the industries and allied sectors. After this exercise is over, we will approach the state government,” a senior official said, adding that it would be difficult for him to indicate approximately how the burden would be on industrial and and low tension consumers. “We have to do a lot of calculation,” he said.
The industrial sector took with a pinch of salt the proposals of the power utilities for raising the power tariff for them for 201011. The APERC will issue a tariff order on July 31 with higher tariffs from August 1 for the industries, if the proposals are accepted by the APERC.
According to the proposals made by distribution companies for 2010-2011, the discoms sought to raise additional revenue of about Rs 2,278 crore by hiking tariff for industrial consumers which range from 50 paise a unit to Rs 1.50 a unit depending on the time of usage.
—Agencies