Consumers, industrialists, and farmers, from districts coming under the jurisdiction of the Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company Limited (GESCOM), voiced their opposition to the increase in power tariff between 95 paise and ₹2.75 a unit for various categories proposed by the GESCOM to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC).
KERC chairman H.M. Manjunath and member M.D. Ravi conducted the hearing in Kalaburagi city on Monday.
According to the proposal, for domestic and commercial consumers, the tariff for consumption of upto 10 units is 95 paise per unit; for irrigation pumpsets it is ₹2.75 per unit for the first 100 units of monthly consumption, and ₹3 per unit for water supply and street lights for the first 150 units.
The GESCOM has also proposed to reduce the tariff for low-tension (LT) industrial consumers by 50 paise per unit for the first 130 units of consumption and to reduce ₹1 on existing tariff for high-tension industrial consumers for the first 300 units’ consumption.
GESCOM Managing Director Rahul Pande explained the rationale and said that the company’s revenue has been affected due to the pandemic as power consumption by industries got reduced.
The sales have reduced by 13.49% as against the increase approved in tariff order for the financial year 2021. Overall revenue has increased by merely 0.10% as against last year’s 8.34% increase approved in tariff order, leaving a shortfall of ₹432 crore, Mr. Pandve told the commission during a public hearing here.
Deepak Gala, president of the Hyderabad-Karnataka Environment Awareness and Protection Organisation (HKEAPO), said that GESCOM has paid capacity charges of ₹266.26 crore for 653 mega units. Mr. Gala held GESCOM responsible for not marketing effectively for selling surplus power and consumers should not be held responsible.
He said GESCOM has failed to initiate measures for promoting additional energy sales.
He also requested the commission to direct the GESCOM to collect the dues of ₹502 crore with interest upto ₹297 crore from corporations towards capital expenditure incurred in providing power supply to Irrigation pumpsets under the Ganga Kalyan scheme.
