KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Power tariff in J&K has increased by 10 percent as the J&K State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) has approved the decided on the PDD petition. The order had been delayed for want of certain documents.
Sources said the tariff is increased by average 10% for the period between October 2016 and March 2017.
In its petition, Power Development Department had proposed 23% hike for the domestic consumers, 25% for the non-domestic /commercial and no hike for State / Central Government departments. For agriculture category, the PDD had proposed 14% hike and 14% and 15% respectively for LT and HT industrial supply.
PDD had pleaded that since there was no tariff hike in the state between 2014-15 and 2015-16, for almost four years and that the government had reduced the electricity duty from 22% to 10% (12% reduction), the case was fit for approval,
However, the SERC approved average 10% hike for the domestic, non-domestic / commercial categories of consumers and nine percent hike in the existing tariffs of state and central government departments. Similarly, for agriculture category, the SERC hiked tariff by 10%. LT industrial supply also witnessed a hike of 10% unlike HT industrial supply where the average hike is 9%.
The SERC award was delayed because the PDD had failed to submit details of subsidy of Rs 1728.37 crore that J&K government announced as part of the 2016-17 budget. Eventually, after a series of reminders, the PDD furnished a letter from Director Finance in the supplementary petition mentioning that Government will provide the necessary support to the PDD to meet the revenue gap for 2016-17.
Interestingly, while the tariff was hiked and the state will chip-in with its own resources to manage the growing gap between expenditure and income on power purchase, the PDD will still have a revenue gap of Rs 2141.85 crore. The award was finally announced on October 7, 2016.
PDD has put its Aggregate Revenue Requirement at Rs 6384.33 crore for 2016-17 but the SERC approved it at Rs 5471.74 crore. Against the revenue realization of Rs 3313.58 crore as per the tariff proposedby PDD, the Commission approved it at Rs 3329.88 crore only.
