Karnataka electricity tarrif hike set to burn a hole in your pockets

It is time to budget your power usage as it may just burn a deep hole in your pockets starting November. The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) has announced an average tariff hike of 27.35 paise per unit in the state.

“The average tariff increase approved by the KERC is 27.35 paise per unit and varies according to the various categories of consumers. The Electricity Supply Companies had earlier sought an 88-paise uniform hike in the tariff, except for the IP set users, Bhagya Jyothi and Kutir Jyothi consumers, which the commission felt was too steep,” said Sreenivas Murthy, chairman, KERC.

The lowest increase in tariff is in the domestic category. “We have increased 10 paise per unit for domestic consumers up to 30 units consumption per month in urban areas and 100 units per month in rural areas, while the domestic consumers have to pay 50 paise more per unit for more than 200 units of consumption per month,” said Murthy.

This means, the tariff for household consumption in urban areas will rise from Rs2.10 to Rs2.20 per unit for consumption up to 30 units, from Rs3.20 to Rs3.40 per unit for consumption between 30 units to 100 units consumption and from Rs4.20 to Rs4.50 per unit for consumption between 100 and 200 units and from Rs5 to Rs5.50 per unit for consumption between 200 to 300 units and from Rs5.50 to Rs6 per unit for consumption beyond 300 units a month.

The households in rural areas, however, will pay between Rs2.10 and Rs5 per unit in different slabs of consumption with only 10 paise hike for consumption up to 100 units per month. “For irrigation pumpsets above 10 HP, private horticulture nurseries, coffee and tea plantations tariff has been increased by 0.15 paise,” he said.

Commercial tariff in urban areas has also been increased from Rs5.60 to Rs6 per unit for the first 50 units of consumption and from Rs6.80 to Rs7 per unit for consumption beyond 50 units. “In rural areas, the new rates will be Rs5.40 and 6.40 paise respectively with an increase in only 10 paise per unit here too,” Murthy said.

Industries, however, will have to cough up more as the price hike for them is steep. “Earlier, the industries (low tension) used to pay between Rs3.60 and Rs4.70 per unit in Bangalore. This has been revised to Rs4 to Rs5 per unit, varying as per the usage and slab. In other areas, however, we have increased it to Rs4.90 and Rs5.30 per unit from the existing Rs4.60 and Rs5, as per the slabs,” he said.

Subsidy increased
The government subsidy towards free supply of power to farmers with pumpsets below 10 HP, the Bhagya Jyothi and Kutir Jyothi schemes, has increased to Rs4,156 crores for 2011 and 2012. “Not only this, we have also asked the Escoms to reduce the distribution losses. The average transmission and distribution losses for Karnataka stand at 16.5% to 17.53%. Along with the transmission losses of Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited, it comes to 21.62% in 2010-11. If these can be contained, it would mean energy saved,” Murhty said.

The commission has called for measures to reduce the distribution losses to about 10% within the next two years. “The commission will be directing the Escoms to switch to high-voltage distribution systems in at least one sub-division in each Escom area this year and subsequently move to other subdivisions. This is a tried and tested method to bring down distribution losses and has been implemented in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat,” he said.

Besides increasing the tariff for energy consumption, the commission has approved increase of fixed charges by Rs5 per kilowatt per month for most categories of consumers, thus apportioning the additional revenue requirement between the energy charges and fixed charges. “The increase in fixed charges is necessitated by the increase in the cost relating to infrastructure and staffing costs of the Escoms.” Murthy said.

The commission has also asked the Escoms to recruit more staff, noting that there have been several complaints with regards to the quality of service. The Escoms have 19,856 vacancies out of the total sanctioned strength of 52,627. “We have directed that Escoms should take immediate steps to recruit at least 50% of the staff,” he said.