TRS, Left oppose power tariff hike proposal

HYDERABAD: Various organisations and political leaders opposed the power tariff hike proposal for domestic consumers at the public hearing conducted by the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) on Saturday. They suggested to the ERC to spare domestic power consumers using 300 units or less in a month and increase the tariff to ‘luxury consumers.’ TRS MLA T Harish Rao found fault with the officials for proposing the tariff hike for almost 79 per cent of the consumers consuming less than 50 units per month, while increasing the tariff by 12.5 per cent to those consuming between 300 and 500 units per month.“The power utilities in the state have a revenue deficit of around Rs 11,000 crore. The government should ponder over the reasons for the deficit and rectify it. It should not pass on the burden to common man,” Harish Rao said.He alleged that the gas linkage to private power producing companies was given immediately, but not provided to the state-owned gas-based power plants. This compelled the power utilities to purchase power at an exorbitant rate of Rs 10 per unit in the open market. It resulted in huge revenue deficit, Harish Rao said. “The government should not only propose tariff hike, but also focus on improving the services to the consumers,” Harish Rao suggested.Telangana Electricity Employees JAC leader K Raghu wanted the ERC to set up another category - luxury consumers - for billing purpose. Raghu pointed out that the domestic power consumers using less than 100 units of power in a month were around 65 per cent and were just consuming 24 per cent of power supplied by the CPDCL. While, those using more than 300 units were around 12 per cent and consuming more than 27 per cent of the power supplied by the discom. If the power utility creates a ‘luxury consumer’ slab for those consuming more than 300 units of power monthly and increased the tariff in that slab, there would be no need to burden the poor and the middle class consumers, he suggested.CPM state secretary BV Raghavulu while opposing the power tariff hike warned that if the tariff was increased the state would burn like in the past.It may be recalled that the government proposed tariff hike and if the ERC gives its nod around Rs 6,000 crore burden would be imposed on the consumers from April onwards.While proposing the tariff hike, the government created a separate sub-category for domestic BPL consumers whose consumption was less than 360 units per year and having connected load less than 500W in the previous year. These consumers shall be categorised as BPL domestic and  under this category the power charges would remain at Rs 1.45/kWh A sub-category has been created under LT-1 domestic for normal consumers (other than BPL consumers).