Power to cost more in Punjab; FCA surcharge levied

Consumers will have to shell out more for electricity in Punjab with power utility PSPCL levying Fuel Cost Adjustment (FCA) surcharge on all categories of consumers, including domestic, industry and commercial.
The FCA surcharge has been levied at a rate of 2 paise per kWh for metered category, including domestic, industrial segments and 0.06 paise per kWh for unmetered category (farming sector) to recover Rs 13.24 crore on account of increase in coal and power purchase cost, a Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) official said today.
The FCA surcharge pertains to the first quarter of 2014-15 (April till June 2014) and it will be recovered from October till December 2014, the official said.

FCA is levied to recover any increase in coal and power purchase cost which is required to be collected from power consumers.
Notably, PSPCL had recovered FCA surcharge for the third and fourth quarter of 2013-14 at a rate of 12 paise per unit.
Power regulator Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) had in August this year announced 2.74 per cent hike in power tariff across all consumer categories in Punjab for the financial year 2014-15.

The commission had raised the power tariff in the range of 11-13 paise per kWh for all categories except agricultural pumpset (AP) category which was raised higher. The power tariff for AP or agriculture category was increased by 31 paise per unit.

The PSPCL had proposed Rs 4,997.60 crore and Rs 9,247.95 crore as fuel cost and power purchase cost, respectively, for 2014-15.
However, the power regulator had approved Rs 4,795.12 crore as fuel cost and Rs 8,381.06 crore as power purchase cost in its tariff order.