PUNJAB CUTS POWER TARIFF FOR INDUSTRY, SUKHBIR OFFERS MORE
Concessions discount PSPCL request for 8% hike, employees also not pleased
Punjab’s industry will pay 2 to 6% less for electricity but there’s no election-year relief for domestic consumers. The annualised tariff announced on Wednesday for April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017, will be recovered in eight months from August 1. PSPCL had asked for about 8% increase in tariff. Announcing more sops, deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal said the small-scale industry paying `5.75 for each unit currently will pay `4.99 now, on a par with what new industry pays. For medium-scale industry, the rate is down from `6.38 to `5.99 per unit, and for the large-scale industry, it has reduced 11 paise from `6.46 to `6.35 per unit.
CHANDIGARH: Punjab’s industry will pay 2 to 6% less for electricity but there’s no election-year relief for domestic consumers.
The annualised tariff announced on Wednesday here for April 1, 2016, to March 31, 2017, will be recovered in eight months from August 1. Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) spared domestic consumers in the previous tariff revision also.
The concessions came even though Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) had asked for about 8% increase in tariff. It needs a little more than `32,000-crore revenue to run itself in the current fiscal. Instead, it will make a little less than `27,000 crore, of which Punjab State Transmission Corporation Limited (PSTCL) will take `1,151 crore, and 54% chunk — about `14,700 crore — will go into buying energy.
The PSPCL has `23,000 crore debt but the PSERC has also found it revenue surplus by `166 crore. On most accounts, the regulator has lowered the revenue sought by the PSPCL but has exceeded its power-purchase estimates by about `1,200 crore from the projected about `13,500 crore.
To PSPCL’s dismay, the cost of employees, fuel, and renovation/ modernisation, besides administrative charges, have been cut drastically. “So far so good,” is how PSPCL chairman and managing director KD Chaudhari reacted.
The engineers association, however, is not delighted. Its president, BS Sra, said “subsidy disbursal is not regular... and the (tariff) order is not clear about funding to the employee benefit trust”. 6,400-CR SUBSIDY
The Punjab government has committed a subsidy of about `6,400 crore (14% hike) to continue with free power to the farm pump-sets and 200 free units to the Scheduled Caste and belowpoverty-line (BPL) consumers.
The regulator has asked state government to pay up in advance on monthly basis, since the past disbursal of subsidy to the PSPCL was erratic, and more than `1,200 crore remains unpaid from the previous year. To encourage power use, the PSERC has removed peak-load-exemption charges (PLEC) from August 1.
But the large-supply (LS) consumers (like furnaces and rolling mills) have to pay `2 over and above the cost of each unit. The LS consumers who cross threshold consumption (above the two-year average) will be charged `1.32 lesser for each unit. DAIRIES GET RELIEF, GAUSHALAS DON’T
The PSERC has given free power to dairies, besides fish/ pig/goat farms. The state government had announced this benefit to gaushalas (cattle pounds) as well but PSERC chairman DS Bains said “there was no petition from any gaushala and no notification from the government”. The government wants to appease coalition partner Bharatiya Janata Party that advocates saving the cow under its Hindutva ideology.