Power Hike Partially Pulled Back
Cabinet decides to exempt consumers using less than 120 units and agricultural connections from price hike | By Yentha
On Aug 02, 2012
| Trivandrum: Responding to protests against the steep increase
in electricity charges, the government has decided to exempt the common
public and the agricultural sector from the hike that was implemented
just over a week ago. The revised electricity charges had the consumers belonging to all groups paying increased rates of up to 30% per category. Fixed charges were also decided on consumption based upon the amount of electricity consumed per month by the consumer. After Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy announced that a consumer whose usage of electricity falls below 120 units/month has been exempted from the revised rates. The connections given to the agricultural sector have also been exempted from the increased rates. The two categories have been exempted from the fixed charges as well. |
The partial roll back from the power hike would come at the cost of
Rs.294.66 crores of the public money, which would have to be paid as
grant to the State Electricity Regulatory Commission to cover its
losses. The altered system would be followed for three more months,
after which it would be re-analysed and suitable changes would be made. Meanwhile, the revised rates for electricity have come under controversy for supposedly favouring bigger companies. As per the revised category, the intermediate consumers using between 150 – 500 units have to bear a greater impact of the revised rates. For the top end industries, those using more than 500 units of power, the increase in tariff rate has a lesser impact in ratio terms, when compared to the intermediary groups. |
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