UPERC may revise power tariff on its own

The UPERC on Monday held a technical validity session with the UPPCL and its discoms but the corporation did not file the tariff revision proposal UPERC OFFICIAL

LUCKNOW : The UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) may soon start suo motu proceedings to revise electricity tariff for the current financial year after the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) chose not to file a tariff revision proposal even as the deadline given for the same by the regulator ended on Monday.

The regulator, last week, had asked UPPCL to file the tariff revision proposal as a follow-up to the annual revenue requirement (ARR) it already filed in first week and warned that the commission would start the process on its own if the proposal was not filed by Monday.

“The UPERC on Monday held a technical validity session with the UPPCL and its discoms but the corporation did not file the tariff revision proposal,” said a UPERC official. “Now, the corporation may have to revise the tariff for 2022-2023 on its own upholding interest of both the consumers and the UPPCL,” the official added.

People aware of the issue claimed that the UPPCL wanted to get the power tariff increased by the regulator without making an “unpopular” demand for an increase in the electricity prices immediately after the assembly polls.

UPPCL filed the ARR proposal in the UPERC as a precursor to the tariff revision (downward or upward) exercise only a day after the seven-phase voting to the assembly elections ended on March 7.

The corporation, in its ARR, put its annual revenue requirement for 2022-23 at Rs 85,500 crore and proposed to buy 1.20 lakh million units of power worth Rs 65,000 crore during the year. It also projected its revenue deficit to be Rs 6,700 crore during 2022-23 unless the current power tariff was revised.

UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad chairman Avdhesh Kumar Verma demanded the UPERC not to make any upward tariff revision considering the fact that corporation had already overcharged consumers during the last one decade.

“The commission should immediately take note of our petition seeking reduction in the current tariff,” he demanded. Verma, in the meantime, filed another petition in the UPERC demanding it issue an order banning the power producers from importing expensive the foreign coal where there was no shortage of domestic coal. “Use of expensive imported coal will surely make power costlier for consumers,” he said.