Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 26: State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) today ordered average 8.5% increase in the power tariff for the current financial year as against 13.53% hike proposed by the Power Development Department. Though hike in domestic category has been kept at par with the increase effected during the last financial year, additional burden has been put on several other categories where hike is ranging between 2% to 15%, which is much more in comparison to the power tariff of 2012-13 year.
The Commission has also expressed grave concern over the scenario vis-à-vis Transmission and Distribution losses in the State and remarked, “despite the fact that such losses in J&K continue to be amongst the highest in the country and at unacceptably high levels, there seems to be no serious efforts from the Power Development Department to contain the same and the directives issued in the previous tariff orders have not been strictly adhered to resulting into deterioration of efficiency levels and alarming increase in the revenue gap over the years”.
According to the order on Retail Tariff for Financial Year 2013-14 issued by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission today, as against 10% hike proposed by the Power Development Department in the power tariff for the domestic category consumers, the SERC has approved 8% increase. However, in the non-domestic category, the Commission has gone much beyond the hike proposed by the PDD. The SERC has approved 12% hike in this category as against only 9% proposed by the Department.
For the State/Central Government Departments, the PDD had proposed 15% hike but the Commission has ordered only 2%. However, in case of Agriculture category, the Commission has gone beyond the hike proposed by the PDD. As against 11% hike proposed by the Department the Commission has approved 12% hike.
For LT Industrial, the Commission has approved 12% hike as against 15% proposed by the department while as for HT Industrial category the Commission has approved only 9% hike as against 20% proposed by the PDD. An increase of 12% has been approved by the SERC as against 20% proposed by the PDD in HT PIU category. For bulk supply, hike of 8% has been approved as against 20% proposed by the Department.
Barring domestic and State/Central Government Department categories, there has been significant hike in the tariff for other categories of consumers this year as compared to the previous financial year. In the non-domestic/commercial category there was 7% hike in 2012-13 but this year the same has gone to 12%. Similarly, for agriculture category there was only 5% hike during last financial year but this year the Commission has approved increase of 12%.
Likewise, as against 7% hike in LT Industrial Supply category during last financial year, the Commission has ordered 12% increase for the current financial year. Even for the HT Industrial Supply category the Commission has increased tariff for 2013-14 financial year by 9% as against only 5% during 2012-13 financial year.
“The Commission, at the time of issuance of the Tariff Order for FY 2008-09, had expected that the PDD would gradually move towards financial viability due to improvements in the performance and additional resource would be generated based on tariff structure and rate changes allowed by the Commission. In view of this, several directives were issued in the tariff orders for achieving this objective. However, contrary to the expectations of the Commission, efficiency levels have deteriorated and the revenue gap has alarmingly increased over the years”, the order said.
The Commission has also noted with concern that the PDD has repeatedly failed to achieve the target for loss as set out by SERC in its previous Tariff Orders. “The actual T&D losses submitted are higher than that proposed by the PDD itself in previous Tariff Orders”, the Commission said, adding “it is a matter of great concern that the T&D losses in the State continue to be at unacceptably high levels”.
“In addition to the T&D loss levels, the PDD is not able to recover the amount that is being billed to the consumers”, the Commission said, adding “the financial viability of the PDD can be achieved by ensuring improvement in efficiency levels and reducing existing level of T&D losses and improving collection”.
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