Moderate hike in electricity tariff in Bihar

Patna, Nov 30 (UNI) Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) has made a 'moderate' increase in the existing power rates to various categories of the state with effect from November 2006.

Official sources said following new revised tariff rate, consumers belonging to domestic and non-domestic categories of urban areas would have to pay an additional 20-30 paise per unit of electricity consumed.

Releasing the revised tariff rates here yesterday, chairman of BERC Justice (retd) B N P Singh said, ''Since electricity has become a scarce commodity due to inadequate availability. Rationing is the best option. Hence, the consumers need to observe austerity voluntarily in consumption of electricity.'' ''The new tariff approved by BERC would fetch an additional revenue of Rs 125 crore leaving a gap of Rs 60 crore which is treated as regulatory asset and will be adjusted over the next two years along with interest,'' Justice Singh added.

''A gap of Rs 1553.83 crore shown in the tariff proposal has been reduced significantly due to various reasons like cost of power purchase being lower than projected by Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) and inclusion of Bihar government grant of Rs 720 crore released by the government as resource gap for procurement of power from central sector generating stations,'' the chairman maintained.

According to revised rates, domestic consumers would have to pay Rs 2 per unit upto 100 units while earlier rate was Rs 1.80.

From 101 units to 200 units, there was an increase of 25 paise in revised tariff, as consumers would now be required to pay Rs 2.50 per units as instead of earlier rate of Rs 2.25 per unit. Consumers would now have to pay Rs 3 per unit for the range 201-300 units electricity consumed. Consumers would pay Rs 3.70 per units for the electricity consumed above 300 units.

In non-domestic sector, there was an increase of 25 paise per unit upto 100 units of electricity consumed while an increase of 65 paise was made in this cateogory for consumption of electricity in the range of 101-200 units.

UNI XC/RS TJP PDM DS1610