Total revenue deficit pegged at Rs 7,720 crore next year
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Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet has rejected APTransco’s proposal to raise power tariff. The Cabinet meeting was held on Monday at the Secretariat and discussed power charges.
APTransco proposed a 10 per cent hike in domestic charges above consumption of 100 units per month. In its proposal it said the total revenue deficit of Transco will be Rs 7,720 crore in the next financial year. If the government gives subsidy of Rs 4,500 crore to Rs 5,000 crore, to fill the gap of Rs 2,000 crore to Rs 2,500 crore, power charges should be increased.
They said free power for the agriculture sector will continue. When this proposal came up for discussion almost all the ministers opposed the hike. They said APTransco should improve distribution and transmission to save power. They said by controlling theft of power Transco can save money.
The ministers said the common man should not be burdened. Finally the cabinet asked AP Transco officials to come up with revised proposals. Meanwhile, after the cabinet meeting AP Information Minister Palle Raghunath Reddy said in the year 2015-16, AP will need 58,191 MW of power and to produce this power it will cost Rs 30,300 crore.
The total revenue of APTransco will be Rs 22,592 crore and the government will give Rs 5,000 crore as subsidy. Transco has proposed the hike in power charges to fill the remaining revenue gap. He said that the total revenue deficit of AP Transco will be Rs 7,716 crore.
The minister said that the cabinet had discussed the proposals made by AP Transco but did not take any decision. He did not explain the details of AP Transco’s proposals. He said if power charges are hiked, the government will see to it that poor people are not burdened.
IN AP, Rs 5.25 per unit of rooftop solar power:
Andhra Pradesh is targeting 9,000 MW of solar and wind power through modules in the next five years. Giving its stamp of approval for both the policies, the AP Cabinet also announced that permissions are to be extended to all solar and wind generation plants at par with any industry. Making NEDCAP as the nodal agency for processing, the Cabinet stated that the approvals will be issued in a single-window system.
As far as captive generation is concerned, roof-top installations will be paid Rs 5.25 paisa per unit. “We will pay average pool price cost to the beneficiaries. This means for every roof-top system, there will be metering and the extra power that remains after the usage by the people can be exported to the grid through installed transmission lines.”
For this, the government will pay a price of Rs 5.25 paisa per unit. If people sell ten units to the grid, they will get around Rs 52.50 and they can make money as well,” Kamalakara Babu, Vice Chairman and CMD of NEDCAP said.
The central government provides a subsidy of 15 per cent on every captive unit and the remaining shall have to be borne by the generator and state. As far as wind energy is concerned, the state pays Rs 4.70 paisa per unit, the minister announced.
Stating that AP generates just 127 MW of solar power at present, he said that it would be increased to 5,000 MW in the next five years. Similarly, 897 MW of wind power is being generated at present which will be increased to 4,000 MW. Steps have been taken to install solar parks in Kurnool and Kadapa districts of up to 2,500 MW.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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