Rajasthan power commission approves up to 11pc hike in electricity tariffs

Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission on Thursday hiked power tariff for different categories of consumers by up to 11 per cent, a move that will result in additional annual revenue of nearly Rs 4,800 crore for power utilities in the state.

The overall increase in power tariff is 11 per cent, which would be applicable from February 1, the commission's chairperson Shreemat Pandey said.

The revised tariff would generate an additional revenue of Rs 792 crore in the last two months (February and March) of the current fiscal.

The power tariff for the agriculture sector has also been hiked but the impact would be borne by the state government.

Rajasthan energy minister B D Kalla said that 57 per cent of consumers would be unaffected with the increase in power tariff.

"There are a total of 133 lakh consumers and 76 lakh consumers, which is 57 per cent, will not be affected by the increase," Kalla said.

The minister said that losses and debt of power discoms (distribution companies) increased due to financial mismanagement by the previous BJP government.

He said the losses of power discoms were nearly Rs 90,000 crore and debt was nearly Rs 66,000 crore when the previous government completed its tenure.

Further, Kalla said the state government was making efforts to reduce transmission and distribution losses of the power companies.

Along with the power tariff revision, the Commission has created a new category of electric vehicle charging stations wherein industries have been given rebate in electricity charges from 55 paise to 85 paise per unit, he said.

EV charging stations will be charged Rs 6 per unit.

Besides, he said the energy charges for metro rail under the traction load capacity has been reduced from Rs 7.50 to Rs 5.70 per unit.

Jaipur, Ajmer and Jodhpur discoms, the three power distribution companies of the state, had filed petitions with the Commission for approval of Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) and tariff for the current fiscal year in August 2019.

The discoms had proposed revision of tariff which would lead to additional revenue of Rs 5,175 crore but the Commission has approved tariffs that would lead to an increase of Rs 4,800 crore for 12 months, he said.

The discoms had projected a net deficit of Rs 7,142 crore for the current fiscal.

There is no increase in electricity charges and fixed charges for BPL and Astha card holders consuming up to 50 units per month.

Also, there is no increase in electricity charges for the consumers of small domestic category, small non-domestic category and industry category.

The increase in tariff is for general domestic category, domestic category, non-domestic category and agriculture category.

The increase for farmers in agriculture category would be borne by the state government and the farmers would not be impacted with the power tariff revision, the minister said.

Earlier this year, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced that the state government would bear increase in power tariff for farmers.

The power tariff was last revised in September 2016.