No Hike in Power Tariff; Will Pay Subsidy To Power Utilities: TG Govt Assures ERC
State officials assure financial support to power utilities, maintaining rates for consumers amid record peak power demand.
Hyderabad: The state government has ruled out any hike in electricity tariff for 2025-26, despite demand for power surging to record levels in the summer.
Appearing before Justice D. Nagarjun, chairman of the state Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC), the state government, represented by deputy energy secretary S. Priyadarshini, said full financial support would be provided to power utilities so as not to burden the consumers.
The government made it clear that there won’t be any power hike for any category. As per the Power Act of 2003, the state government is committed to extend financial support to power utilities, the government informed the commission.
Meanwhile, appearing before the ERC, Musharraf Ali Faruqui, chairman and managing director of the Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company, and joint managing director C. Srinivas Rao put forth tariff proposals and informed that they were not increasing power charges.
Musharraf said that they would face a revenue shortfall of Rs 9,758 crore and urged the state government to bridge the gap by way of subsidy.
Stating that the country’s peak power demand had touched 17,162 MW, Faruqui said that the power utility had made swap agreement with electricity companies in the country, which helped it to save Rs 1,614 crore.
Stating that they were strengthening the power distribution network at a cost of Rs 578.88 crore, he said that the distribution losses have reduced to 8.38 per cent. The power purchase cost has come down to Rs 5.76 per unit, while peak transaction rate failure was 1.55 per cent and distribution transformer rate 5.7 per cent, Faruqui told the commission.