Before its finances spiral out of control, KSEB wants to regulate the energy consumption of all categories of consumers in the state, including domestic, during the 2012-13 fiscal.

As per the plan, domestic consumers will be permitted to consume only up to 300 units per month at the normal tariff.

Consumption above the 300-unit mark will be linked to the actual cost of purchasing costly power from outside.

The proposed regulation would not hurt a large chunk of domestic consumers as the average monthly consumption of the domestic consumer is only 71 units.

However, industries would be hit. Each of the HT(high tension), EHT (extra high tension) and LT (low tension) industrial consumers will be permitted to consume only 85 pe cent of their respective average energy consumption at the normal tariff.

The proposal was made by the board in its “Application for approval of the Aggregate Revenue Requirement and Expected Revenue from Charges for the year 2012-13” submitted before the Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

As per the board, the rocketing expenditure is due to various reasons including the over-dependence on costly thermal stations.

“At present, 60 per cent of the total revenue requirement is for power purchase,” a senior KSEB official said. Another reason is the soaring consumption of the heavily-subsidised domestic sector. It now accounts for nearly 48 per cent of the total energy consumed.