In a great relief to the people, Andhra Pradesh has spared the majority of the consumers from the proposed tariff hike which is going to come into force from April 1, 2016. The criticism of opposition YASRC party against the ruling TDP is that YSR had never resorted to tariff hike as chief minister , while Naidu increased it on a regular basis. This seems to have had an effect on the thinking of regulator, for the first time, domestic consumers have been spared while upping the tariff.
Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission announced the new tariff system this afternoon. Confining the tariff hike only to the industrial and commercial consumers, it spared about 96.6 per cent of the consumers. There are about 1.47 crore consumers in Andhra Pradesh.
Releasing the new tariff order, C Bhavani Prasad, chairman of APERC, said, domestic consumers were untouched this time round. ” There is no increase in the tariff for domestic consumers. Energy charges are increased only for non-domestic users. The increase is also restricted to just 2 per cent, against the 4 per cent hike proposed by the Discoms,” he said.
Bhavani Prasad said the tariff increase would yield just Rs. 216 crore as against Rs. 783 crore proposed by the licensees ie Discoms.” As against a proposed increase of 2.75 per cent over last year, it has been limited to 0.81 per cent,” the chairman added.
Besides domestic consumers, APERC also exempted railway traction from the tariff hike. The tariffs for sugarcane crushing units, lift irrigation schemes, aquaculture and animal husbandry (pisciculture /prawn culture, poultry units and dairy farms), poultry hatcheries, religious places and energy intensive units such as ferro alloys units has been reduced.
The APERC disallowed many of the proposals put forth by the discoms. For example, the discoms sought Rs 4,364 crore for power subsidy for agriculture, the APERC pegged it at Rs 3, 289 . Similarly while the Discoms projected an annual revenue requirement of Rs 28,423 crore, the APERC brought it down to Rs 26,649 crore.
