The Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) on Friday announced a hike in the power tariff rates for almost all categories of consumers.
Addressing a press conference, TSERC Chairman Ismail Ali Khan and members Manohar Reddy (Technical) and Srinivas (Finance) said that the overall increase in the tariff rates would be of about 4.42%.
The average increase in tariff for the entire domestic category will be of 1.3%.
There will be no tariff increase for domestic consumers consuming up to 200 units per month. Of 88 lakh domestic consumers, around 80 lakh consumers would gain from this.
Similarly, there will be no increase in tariff for agriculture and cottage industries, which would benefit around 18 lakh consumers.
There will be no tariff increase for small non-domestic consumers consuming up to 50 units per month. This will benefit nearly 6 lakh of the 10.6 lakh non-domestic consumers.
The TSERC has merged the slabs of consumption between 401-500 units and above 500 units into a single slab of consumption of above 400 units.
As per the revised tariff, the charges for up to 50 units of consumption for domestic consumers will be Rs 1.45 per unit. They will be Rs 2.60 for 51-100 units, and Rs 3.60 for 101-200 units.
Ismail Ali Khan informed that the Telangana government had agreed to provide a subsidy of Rs 4,227 crores for financial year 2015-16 under Section 65 of the Electricity Act, 2003. Further, the state government had agreed to provide an additional subsidy of Rs 30 crores for poultry farms, and hence the tariff for poultry farms had been reduced by around Rs 2/unit, benefiting 4,267 consumers.
The TSERC chief said that the number of consumers across Telangana is likely to be around 1.2 crore in the year 2015-16. (INN)