No tariff increase for consumer categories next year

Hyderabad, Nov 30 (UNI) Improvement in the internal efficiency has helped APTRANSCO and Discoms to prevent increase in power tariff for consumer categories for next year, APTRANSCO Chairman and Managing Director Rachel Chatterjee said today.

In a statement here, she said this was in continuation of the trend of the last few years when there had been no tariff increase.

During the current year, the state had witnessed adversites in terms of severe gas shortages leading to the existing gas-based generators operating at only 56 per cent Plant Load Factor(PLF), while there was no operation from the new generators, she added.

The state had been blessed with good hydel generation and this had helped the power utilities to tide over the difficult situation, she said adding that APTRANSCO and the Discoms had managed to keep these difficult factors at bay through their sustained efforts at efficiency improvement.

Proposals were afoot to reduce the Transmission and Distribution (T and D) losses for 2007-08 to 18.17 per cent, a reduction of 1.52 per cent from the current year levels. This was among the lowest T and D losses in the country and result in savings of Rs 188 crore.

For the ensuing year the sector revenue gap was projected at Rs 1,622 crore. However the licensees proposes to pass the savings due to the hydel benefit in the current year to the consumers. By current estimates this amounts to Rs 235 crore, she added.

The Tariff order of Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission for the current year provided a subsidy of Rs 1,352 crore, she added.

UNI BR ROY 1847