Cities to bear power burden

Courtesy: The Telegraph

Patna: Urban areas will have to shoulder the burden of the power tariff hike, it became clear as chief minister Nitish Kumar announced subsidies for various categories of consumers. Kutir Jyoti connections for below poverty line families have been given the maximum subsidy of Rs 3.58 per unit, which makes the actual cost for such connections Rs 2.50 per unit. Domestic rural consumers will get subsidy of Rs 3.10 per unit, bringing the actual cost to Rs 3.35 per unit. The hike is steeper for non-domestic consumers. In rural areas, the commercial consumer will have to pay Rs 4.33 per unit while urban commercial consumers will have to pay Rs 7.62 per unit. Power for farming and irrigation has been heavily subsidised - Rs 4.29 per unit - and the actual cost for such connections will be Rs 1.50 per unit. Industrial consumers with high-tension connections will have to pay the most: Rs 8.34 per unit for 19KV lines and Rs 8.49 for 11KV lines. The subsidy a consumer is getting will be mentioned on the bill for the month of April onwards. The chief minister, justifying his move to shift the subsidy from the power companies directly to the consumers, said: "I am confident that other states will follow suit." Consumers were hitherto unaware of the fact that the government had to pay a huge subsidy for the power the people consumed, he said. The state government will pay Rs 2,952 crore as subsidy for 2017-18, which is Rs 248 crore more than what it had paid in the 2016-17 financial year. Nitish pointed out that during 2016, the power availability was 24,905 million units, which was projected to rise to 30,740 million units during 2017-18. On March 24, the Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (Berc) had announced a hike of 55 per cent on an average in power tariffs, triggering protests and outrage by both Opposition parties and members of trade and industry. Energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav had explained that the hike announced was without government subsidy. Nitish said when he took over as chief minister, power companies demanded a subsidy of around Rs 60 crore per month. "But through the years, it had increased to almost Rs 300 crore per month. When I asked how much goes to the consumers, nobody knew. This year, as a policy decision, I decided to hand over the subsidy directly to the consumers. "Now, the power companies will have to declare why they are under-performing and asking for more money. They will have to do the billing in time and also collect money," Nitish added, stressing that he had no doubt that the performance of power companies will improve in a year. He said the government's power subsidy will increase in the coming years with more energy consumption and the government had to break the connection between the performance of power companies and subsidies given. "It is a part of power reforms which started with the unbundling of the Bihar State Electricity Board into five companies. More reforms will follow," he said. The Opposition was not convinced. "Despite increased subsidy, consumers have been passed a burden of over Rs 4,200 crore," said senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi. "The increase should have been more gradual. The government should have cut down on its own wasteful expenditure instead." The steep power hike is a direct result of the revenue loss of Rs 4,500 crore because of prohibition, he said. "We had supported the ban, but it has become a sham" he said. "Liquor is available to anyone at a higher cost."