The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission on Saturday gave the nod for revising the electricity tariffs in the State after a gap of three years. The revised tariffs will come into effect on Saturday midnight.
The commission has permitted the tariffs to be increased by 6.6% overall, which is about one-third of the hike proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB). Domestic category tariffs will go up by, on an average, 25 paise a unit.
There is no tariff revision for the following consumer categories: BPL (below the poverty line) families with connected load up to 1,000 watts and having a monthly consumption of up to 40 units; domestic consumers with monthly consumption up to 50 units (25 lakh consumers); and orphanages, anganwadis, and old age homes (32,500 consumers).
This decision is also applicable to BPL families with cancer patients or permanently disabled persons with a connected load up to 1,000 watts and monthly consumption up to 150 units. The energy charges of agricultural consumers (4.76 lakh in number) have not been hiked and the reduced tariffs for endolsufan victims in Kasaragod district will continue.
Commission chairman Preman Dinaraj announced the revised telescopic and non-telescopic energy charges and the fixed charges for the domestic category and that of 36 other consumer categories here on Saturday.
According to estimates shared by the commission, the electricity bill of a domestic consumer using up to 100 units a month will now go up from ₹388 to ₹410 after the revision. Approximate rates for other consumption levels in the domestic category are as follows (old charges in brackets): 150 units ₹675 (₹638), 200 units ₹1,045 (₹973), 300 units ₹1,990 (₹1,850), 350 units ₹2,600 (₹2,420), 400 units ₹3,115 (₹2,820), 500 units ₹4,000 (₹3,680) and 550 units ₹4,900 (₹4,495).
The tariffs for the Low Tension-Industry category have gone up, on an average, 10 to 20 paise, and that of HT-EHT Industry, by 40 to 50 paise.
Notwithstanding the multi-year tariff regime where the KSEB has submitted tariff proposals for five fiscals up to 2026-27, the commission had announced the revision for only the 2022-23 fiscal at present, Mr. Dinaraj said.
Electricity tariffs were last hiked on July 8, 2019. The present hike will rake in approximately ₹1,005 crore for the KSEB, whereas the State power utility had projected a revenue gap of ₹2,852.58 crore for 2022-23.
