Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 6: In a major decision of the PDP-BJP coalition Government, the Power Development Department (PDD) after several years has proposed no tariff hike in the electricity for all categories of consumers from domestic to commercial and trade to industry for the financial year of 2015-16 and created a separate Below Poverty Line (BPL) consumer category to provide relief to socio-economic backward people for consumption up to 30 units per month.
The `no hike proposal’ has been submitted by the Power Development Department (PDD) to State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) in the form of a petition filed by the Chief Engineer (Commercial and Survey), PDD. This is after several years that the PDD has not proposed any hike for any category of consumers including commercial, trade and industrial sector etc.
“The State Government will provide budgetary support for meeting whole revenue gap in the PDD for the financial year of 2015-16,” official sources told the Excelsior.
“The Power Development Department doesn’t propose any tariff hike for the financial year of 2015-16. It proposed to retain the tariff approved by the Commission for financial year of 2014-15 for 2015-16 for various consumer categories served by the PDD,” the petition filed by the PDD before the SERC, said.
It said the PDD has created a separate BPL consumer category to provide relief to socio-economic backward consumers for consumption up to 30 units per month.
Only those consumers will be included in the BPL category who would submit a BPL certificate from the competent authority of the State Government. However, if consumption within the category exceeds beyond 30 units per month, the consumption over and above (30 units) would be charged as per the applicable rates for domestic metered category in accordance with the relevant consumption slab, the petition said, adding the existing charge of Rs 1.19 per units and fixed charges of Rs 5 up to consumption of 30 units per month would continue.
In another first, the PDD has proposed that the Group Housing Societies can avail single point power supply. The energy bill of a Housing Society will be divided by the number of houses in it to determine the consumption in each house.
“The Commission has fixed applicability of the State/Central Government Department category to connections taken by Departments of the State and the Central Governments, Defence and para-military forces excluding public sector enterprises/undertakings,” sources said.
This, however, will not include connections taken for agricultural purposes, water pumping and street lightning by the State Government Departments for which tariffs provided in appropriate tariff schedules will apply.
For agricultural supply, the Commission has fixed applicability of the agricultural tariff to agricultural loads and lift irrigation connections including threshers. This will also be applicable to the State Government lift irrigation and pumping loads in this category.
Sources said the Commission has decided that LT industrial supply shall be applicable to all units registered with Industries and Commerce Department and covered under the Factories Act. The list of entities covered shall include various industrial installations and workshops with manufacturing facilities, where raw materials are converted to finished goods. This will mean all energy consumed in factory, offices, stores canteen, compound, lightning etc.
The Commission has introduced separate category namely LT Industrial Supply (LTIS)-II in order to provide relief to atta chakkis, oil expellers, rice huskers, cotton grinning in rural and unorganized sector having load up to 10 HP. LTIS-I would include all LT industrial consumers except those covered under LTIS-II.
“Temporary connections shall be granted for a period of up to three months at a time. However, if the period of temporary connections is extended beyond three months, the tariff would be two times of the applicable fixed/demand and energy charges,” sources said. The Commission has approved the tariff for temporary connections at 1.5 times the applicable rates on fixed/demand and energy charges.
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