RGPPL defers decision on raising tariff

The board of beleaguered Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd (RGPPL) on Tuesday considered the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) order that raised tariff of electricity generated by it but deferred a decision till the next board meeting.

“CERC has gone strictly by the rule book to propose an electricity tariff. But this is not a rule book project and so rule book tariff cannot apply to it,” an RGPPL official said.

The RGPPL board decided to wait for the outcome of the meeting between Power Secretary H S Brahma and CERC Chairman Pramod Deo over the next few days before arriving at a decision.

The options before RGPPL include asking Maharashtra government to pay higher electricity tariff and decommercialising the project machinery.

In an order passed recently, CERC said the target availability for the generation station was not justified for the proposed tariff, as the project’s gas availability for 2008-09 had been reduced to 34.3 per cent from 70.2 per cent a year ago.

RGPPL asked for relaxation of the target availability norms, on which CERC held that the risk of such low level of operation of the station had to be borne by the power producer.

RGPPL had proposed a tariff hike of up to Rs 4.44 per unit (capacity charge Rs 2.65 + Rs 1.79 fuel charge) for 2009-10, in a petition filed in April.