PANAJI
Goa's power consumer across categories, including domestic, could end up paying significantly higher electricity bills from April 1 this year if the Electricity department's fiscal plan for 2023-24 which envisages a tariff hike gets the nod of the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC).
The tariff hike proposal of the Electricity department documents a hike of between 15 to 60 paise per unit (kwh) for domestic low tension consumers and 70 paise per unit for high tension domestic consumers.
Additionally the proposal also provides for a hike in 'fixed charges' which is charged on the load at the rate of Rs 22 per kilowatt per month.
The business plan filed before the JERC in November last year, includes a performance review in terms of financials of the current year, the aggregate revenue requirement of the department for the next financial year (2023-24) and separately the tariff hike proposal for 2023-24.
In the business plan, the department justifies the proposal to hike tariffs by arguing that the revenue gap which is subsidised by the State government through budgetary provisions to the tune of Rs 348.69 crore is not sustainable in the long run and needs to be partially bridged.
According to the performance review of the current year, the electricity department in the current year has a net revenue requirement of Rs 2864.13 crore and is expecting to recover Rs 2565.79 crore from consumers through billing. Thus, it is projecting a shortfall of Rs 298.33 crore by the end of the current fiscal.
In its projected plan for the 2023-24 fiscal, it has projected this revenue gap to widen to Rs 483.65 crore and is hoping to bridge it a bit with the hike in tariffs.
Interestingly, the proposal to hike tariffs is in conflict with another three-year financial plan filed before the JERC in 2021.
With an assembly election due in 2022, the Electricity department then headed by current PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral, had filed a three-year business plan before the JERC in November 2021, in which it had proposed that tariffs would remain constant without any hikes until March 31, 2025.
