From Our Correspondent
AGARTALA: Citing pressure from the Power Ministry, Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd (TSECL) has finally initiated a detailed exercise to submit an application seeking power tariff hike.
As per the Ministry’s guideline, the annual account has to be submitted before the state regularity commission by September of each year for revision of power tariff.
But here, it has just kicked off the process. “We have begun exercise of preparing annual accounts to know the actual income and expenditure of the corporation”, said Nildri Sekhar Chakraborty, Chairman cum Managing Director (CMD) of Tripura State Electricity Corporation (TSECL) here on Friday.
Talking to media on the possible power hike move, Chakraborty said, “It is almost certain that power tariff will go up following abrupt hike in natural gas (171 percent) and substantial increase in the expenditure of power purchase”.
According to him, the last time it was in 2006 when the TSECL had increased the tariff considering the income and expenditure of the TSECL. Last year, power tariff was hiked little bit following hike in the gas price but no detailed exercise was done as per the norms. The power tariff is lowest in Tripura with compare to other states with a price of Rs. 3.50 per unit.
Chakrabroty said the TSECL has to apply for power tariff hike before the Tripura Eectricity Regulatory Commission (TERC) or else it would take the decision suo-moto.
“By end of November, the TSECL expects to submit its application along with financial statements of the corporation before the competent authority- TERC”, he said.
Chakraborty said that the Power Ministry had categorically asked the power corporation of each state to submit tariff petition to the competent authority on regular basis or else it would affect the benefit from the centrally sponsored schemes.
Voicing concern over the growing loss of the corporation, Chakraborty said that the TSECL had incurred a loss of Rs. 100 crore during 2010-11 and that would continue current year too. As per the assessment, the annual expenditure of the corporation has increased by Rs. 150 from 2009-10 to 2010-11 FY and 90 percent expenditure has been increased owing to hike in the gas price and increase in the cost of power purchase from outside the state.
On being asked about the transmission loss, he said that it stood around 29 percent against national average- 28 percent.