Here’s another reason for Mumbaikars to fret. The two electricity utilities in the city — the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking and Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) have imposed an additional 51 paise per unit and 59 paise per unit respectively for all their consumers. The hiked bill will be sent to consumers from December onwards.
This has been done on account of fuel adjustment charge (FAC) incurred by the utilities to provide uninterrupted power supply to Mumbaikars. It may be recalled that DNA had on November 5 first reported about the hiked FAC which would result in a tariff hike for Mumbaikars.
Last week, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission had approved 27 paise per unit FAC for Tata Power Company. This will affect RInfra, which had to incur additional cost by way of added FAC to Tata, its own generation at Dahanu as well as the expensive power purchased. BEST, however, will be subjected to additional FAC by way of expensive power and that payable to Tatas.
The city was facing a power shortage of over 600 mw to 700 mw daily not only during summer months but also during monsoon. To ensure uninterrupted power, the utilities had purchased expensive power to the tune of Rs10 to Rs12 per unit. This is the second tariff hike this financial year. The first was in June when Merc had fixed tariffs for the three utilities.
The actual FAC incurred by RInfra was Rs494.06 crore but the commission approved only Rs197.47 crore to be recovered at 59paise per unit whereas Rs91.84 crore was approved for BEST resulting in additional 51paise per unit. The hiked tariff will have to be borne even by those consumers who have sought fresh connections from these two utilities.
