PANAJI
Prominent industry organisations including the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Goa have opposed the tariff hike proposed by the Goa Electricity Department (GED) and demanded several changes at the public hearing held on Friday.
GCCI said the main concern was the time of the day (TOD) tariff, which has been split from the existing three to four slabs with an increase in the peak hour slots. “There is an average increase of 10% in the peak slabs, amounting to a cumulative increase of 15.3% in the tariff,” GCCI said and urged the JERC to withdraw these new slabs in the tariff structure and revert to the earlier ones.
Another change the GCCI has sought in the petition is the transition to KVAh-based billing from the earlier kWh-based billing for various consumer categories.
This, according to the GCCI, will effectively lead to an average tariff increase of approximately 10% and it demanded that the change be implemented with appropriate safeguards or phased adjustments to mitigate the impact, particularly on consumers with limited reactive power control capabilities.
The GCCI also demanded the formation of district committees to oversee capital works and their progress. It said the Electricity Act provides for such committees and demanded that the JERC mandate the State government to form them.
CII Goa representative Richard Souza questioned the change in settling the net billing for industrial consumers who have set up renewable energy plants, from the earlier ‘metering basis’ to net billing basis.
