KERC order on power tariff hike soon

Escoms have sought a price increase of 75 paise per unit of power supplied by them

Indicating this to media persons at the end of the public hearing on the petition of Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company (GESCOM) here on Monday, KERC Chairman M R Srinivas Murthy said the KERC will finish public hearings on the tariff revision petitions filed by all the electricity supply companies (ESCOMs) of the State and the Karnataka Power Transmission and Corporation Limited (KPTCL) well before the end of the current calendar year.

The Escoms have filed petition with the KERC seeking a hike of 75 paise per unit of power supplied by them to consumers.

The last public hearing will be held on November 25 at Mysore to hear the petition of the CESCOM and the Commission would try to finalise its orders at the earliest possible. “After the completion of hearing we will not take much time to issue orders,” Murthy added.

Asked whether the KERC would issue uniform tariff orders for all ESCOMs or differential tariff, the KERC Chairman, accompanied by its two members Vishvanath Hiremath and K.Srinivas Rao, said he cannot say what kind of orders could be issued at this juncture. However, the Commission had been following the procedure of issuing different tariff orders for different sets of consumers.

Asked whether the Commission was satisfied with the compliance of the directives issued by the KERC, Srinivas Murthy said that some companies have been following the directives, while others had some bona fide difficulties in complying with them. He pointed out that the BESCOM has achieved 98 per cent metering of Bhagya Jyothi and Kuteer Jyothi installations while the achievement of GESCOM was only 75 per cent.

Murthy said the Commission was studying the request of the State government on determining the modalities for quantifying subsidy for ESCOMs for supplying free power to certain sections.

He denied that the State government has become a wilful defaulter in clearing the electricity dues of public institutions, stating that it was for the urban local bodies and panchayat raj institutions to clear the dues as they receive funds from the government.