The monster electricity is rushing with 10 thousand fangs

23 Dec, 2012 11:07 IST|Sakshi
The monster electricity is rushing with 10 thousand fangs

  The government has begun the exercise to implement the new electricity charges for the 2013-14 financial year. In view of 2014 being election year and as there will not be any opportunity for a high rise in the charges, the government is planning to throw the burden on the people this year itself to make up the loss.

It is planning to raise the rate to an average of Rs 1.23 per unit for the consumers of all sectors and collect 10 thousand crores.
The Discums will submit proposals with this aim and they will come up for public discussions in February and at the end of March, the ERC will issue orders on the new charges

10  thousand crores  electricity charge ! The charges are going to be raised from April 1 onwards
The consumers’ back is already being broken under the burden of adjustments and other charges, but the government is getting ready to give them another fatal blow.
It has started making attempts to collect 10 thousand crores as electricity charges The Discums are getting ready to raise on an average Rs. 1.23 per unit. It will be in addition to the adjustment and other charges with which the bills are heavily loaded. All the sectors—whether they are domestic, business, and commercial are going to get the shock.  For the past two days, the higher officials in Discums are struggling with getting the proposals ready. But it has come to be known that they have not come to any decision as to how far they should raise the charges. However, they want to come to an agreement quickly so that they could submit the proposals to the ERC on 28th when the all-party meeting on Telengana happens in Delhi. It seems to be the government’s idea that the people will be preoccupied with Telengana and the issues connected with it. So they will not bother themselves much about the raise. ERC will put up the proposals for open discussion and then pass the orders in the last week of March. The new charges will come into effect from 1 April

Put the burden on the people and get over the loss
The Discums have preliminarily estimated that there will be a revenue loss of Rs 16 thousand crores in 2013-14. The government will bear 6 thousand crores as subsidies to agriculture and others.  The Discums are thinking of making up the loss of the rest of ten thousand crores by raising the charges. The officials of the Energy Department will decide how much they should raise the charges to each of the sectors among consumers after taking the permission of the chief minister and then the proposals will be submitted to ERC. To make up such heavy revenue loss, apart from directly raising electricity charges  they will also have to resort to indirect ways of raising demand charges that is service and connection charges. Even those domestic consumers who use below 100 units are due for a shock. Domestic users who use more than 300 units are going to be burdened heavily
At present for those who use 100 units the rate is 2.60 per unit , from 101-200 it is 3.60, and from 201-300 it is 5.65. But they are going to give up this telescopic method from next year onwards. They are going to charge Rs 5.25 straight away from 300 units onwards.
For the units above 300 they are going to raise the charges to Rs 7. For business and commercial sectors they are going to raise the charges from 75 paise onwards to Rs 1.50 and for corporate and those farmers who pay IT, the charges will be raised from 50 paise to Rs 1
The reason for the charges to be raised in this manner is the anxiety of the government to collect the maximum amount in 2013-2014. The general elections are going to take place in 2014-2015. So it will not be possible to raise the charges during the election year. In addition to this, there is the necessity to buy coal from other countries, the supply of gas is decreasing gradually, and the hydro-electricity is not available in units hoped for. All these reasons are compelling the government to buy electricity in the open market at  higher rate. As the supply of gas has decreased, the discums have decided to buy the reliquified gas in bulk for the whole year. For this, the discums have to spend an extra amount of Rs 300 crores. The result is the rise in cost to serve.  COS means the cost of producing a unit of electricity and supplying it to the consumer. It was Rs 4.42 last year but in the next financial year that is 2013-2014, it will rise to 5.65 which means for every unit, Rs 1.23 extra  will be collected from the consumer.

Rs 14,800 crores within three years
Late Sri Rajasekhar Reddy did not raise the electricity charges even by one paisa from 2004 to 2009. He had even reduced the charges for industries. He promised that he will not raise the charges for the next five years. But after his death for the past three years the government has been steadily raising the electricity charges.  A thousand crores in 2010 -2011 and another thousand crores in 2011-2012, and in 2012-2013 the rise was to the tune of 4 thousand crores. Along with this, it  is levying adjustment charges of Rs 600 crores for the years 2010-2011,and also  2011-2012. It is ruthlessly collecting 1,800 crores for the first three months of the year 2012-2013. It is getting ready to levy another thousand crores for the next three months. That means for the past three years whether it is in the form of regular charges or adjustment charges, Rs 14,800 crores were collected. The government is getting ready to raise regular charges for an amount of Rs 10 thousand crores.
-Sakshipost

 

 

 

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