SHILLONG: Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma informed the assembly on Thursday that the Meghalaya Public Distribution Corporation Limited (MePDCL) – an entity of the MeECL- has filed a ‘distribution tariff petition’ – with a proposed 89 per cent power hike.
“The tariff petition by the Meghalaya Power Distribution Company Limited (MePDCL) does not indicate a hike of 500 per cent. They have proposed an increase of only 89 per cent,” Dr Sangma said, clarifying that the MeECL has submitted a proposal to increase the power tariff by 89 per cent.
He was replying to a call attention motion moved by Chokpot legislator Clifford R Marak.
Earlier, moving the call attention motion, Marak had expressed surprised that the MeECL was proposing to hike the power tariff by 500 percent.
The Chief Minister said that the petition for revised tariff would be determine by the Meghalaya State Electricity Regulatory Commission (MSERC), adding that the commission normally did not always agree to the proposal submitted by the MeECL.
“The MSERC would ensure that the interests of the consumer are given utmost importance. They would not like to see that the burden is passed on to the consumers. But the commission would also like ensure that the MeECL does not become a sick unit,” he said.
Dr Sangma said that they would also be making comparisons with the power tariff prevailing in the neighboring states. Citing examples, the Chief Minister said that the energy charge for domestic consumers in Assam was in the range of Rs 3.58 to Rs 6.15 per unit, in Tripura between Rs 3.75 to Rs 6.90 per unit and in West Bengal between Rs 4.11 to 7.96 per unit, as against an existing energy charge of between Rs 2.60 to Rs 3.75 per unit in Meghalaya.
“The power tariffs in these States are higher than in Meghalaya despite their receiving substantial revenue subsidies from the respective state governments. The power tariff in Meghalaya is lesser, though the Government does not provide revenue subsidies to the MeECL,” Dr Sangma said.
He said the new power tariff would be fixed after comparisons with tariffs prevailing in neighboring states. “I want to assure that from the side of the Government, we would also ensure there should not be an abnormal increase in the power tariff,” the Chief Minister said.
Explaining the mechanism of tariff fixation, Dr Sangma informed that different costs were required to be matched with revenue which would be realized through sales of energy to consumers.
“It is noteworthy to mention that the growth of energy consumption is nominal in Meghalaya, due to which the high increase in expenses is divided among less number of units of energy, leading to significant increase in per unit tariff. In order to limit the tariff hike for domestic category consumer, the tariff increase is offset by cross-subsidy from industrial and other categories of consumers. Hence, the tariffs for non-domestic consumers are higher,” Chief Minister said.
“This huge increase on the power tariff is unjustified since it would be put a huge burden on the consumer,” the Chokpot legislator said. He urged upon the State Government to review this proposal of the MeECL to increase of the power tariff by such a huge percentage. “I would like to suggest the Government to consider the increase of the power tariff by ten percent every year. This would not put any extra burden on the poor consumers,” Marak added.
