Hyderabad: It is unlikely that the state government will allow power tariffs to be increased for the second consecutive year. The power distribution companies who will submit tariff proposals to the TS State Regulatory Commission by December 15 will be suggesting that the existing tariffs be continued for 2018-19, though they had earlier pitched for a raise. The power tariff was last hiked in 2016 and remained unchanged in 2017.
When power officials met Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao to discuss the tariff proposal, they brought to his notice that demand for power will increase drastically in 2018 due to the 24-hour free power to agriculture announced from January 1 across the state, Mission Bhagiratha which will pump water for the Krishna and Godavari and major lift irrigation projects like Kaleshwaram, Palamur-Ranga Reddy. A minor increase in power tariff is thus necessary, they argued.
