Power consumers in the suburbs may have to face a tariff hike in the coming days with the state power regulators provisionally approving a revenue gap of Rs 221.78 crore for the financial year 2010-11 for Reliance Infrastructure Limited (RInfra).
The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) directive issued on Monday said that the order shall come into force with immediate effect. “The revenue gap determined in this order would be considered while determining the tariff for the subsequent year(s),” the order said.
RInfra caters to around 27 lakh consumers in Mumbai’s suburbs and surrounding areas like Mira Road and Bhayender. “RInfra-D submitted that majority of revenue gap for FY 2010-11 has arisen due to stay on retail tariffs for the first five months in 2010-11 fiscal and loss of cross-subsidy due to migration of subsidizing consumers to TPC-D. RInfra-D submitted that the revenue gap in FY 2010-11 was equal to the difference between the revenue earned and the actual ARR (annual revenue requirement), i.e., Rs692.97 Crore.
“The Commission has re-computed the revenue gap by considering the ARR approved under the provisional truing up exercise and the revenue income thereby for FY 2010-11. The provisionally approved revenue gap for FY 2010-11 works out to be Rs221.78 crore for FY 2010-11,” the order said.
The MERC has also directed RInfra to “make detailed submissions on the usage of land/building(s) located in Santa Cruz, which appear as a part of asset base of RInfra’s regulated business and establish that there can/cannot be any income under income from other businesses” for FY 2009-10 and FY 2010-11 within one month from the date of issue of this Order.”
A RInfra spokesperson said they were “studying the order and will be in a position to comment at an appropriate time.”
