Telangana: Electricity regulatory commission to decide on power tariff

Hyderabad: TS government has foisted the responsibility of hiking the power tariff for 2017-18 on the TS Electricity Regulatory Commission by rejecting the proposals of the Discoms.

The ERC now has to decide whether to burden consumers by hiking power tariff or to throw the Discoms into further debt trap. TSTransco has estimated that the revenue gap will be around Rs 8,000 crore for 2017-18 and had requested the state government to bear the entire amount.

However, the state government allotted Rs 3,583.64 crore as power subsidy in Budget 2017-18, meaning that the revenue gap will be around Rs 4,500 crore.
This will have to be borne by the Southern Power Distribution Company and the Northern Power Distribution Company.

Unless the state government increases power subsidy, the revenue gap of Rd 4,500 crore will have to be borne either by the consumers or DISCOMS or by both. ERC sources said before finalising the tariff proposals, it will again request the TS government to enhance the power subsidy.