Power tariff hike in Andhra Pradesh tiggers Statewide protests

Visakhapatnam: Protests erupted across Andhra Pradesh with the Opposition parties and residents' welfare organisations demanding rollback of steep increase in power tariff announced by the government with effect from April 1, the new financial year.

The Opposition parties staged dharnas and squatted on the roads in protest against the exorbitant hike. In Visakhapatnam, various organisations staged a demonstration near the corporate office of APEPDCL. "After declaring during his padayatra that he will not enhance the power tariff hike, Chief Minister YS. Jagan Mohan Reddy is taxing people with various types of hikes including introduction of garbage collection charges and upward revision in house tax," CITU president Ch Narsinga Rao told Bizz Buzz on Thursday. TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh and State vice-president Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy said they will continue an agitation against increase in power tariff till it is rolled back. CPI State assistant secretary JV Satyanarayana Murthy recalled how late YS Rajasekhara Reddy, father of the Chief Minister, had led anti-power tariff hike agitation during the TDP regime demanding rollback of tariff hike leading to the death of three protesters at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad in 2000.

In the new tariff order issued by AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) for 2022-23, it was said that they had resorted to it as part of "rationalisation of tariff structure" on the basis of a telescopic billing system. The hike is expected to net an additional revenue of Rs.1400 crore. APERC stated that even after the hike, the three distribution companies will be left with a deficit of Rs10,456 crore. The hike will burden an estimated 170 lakh consumers while leaving 20.7 lakh without any additional amount on power consumed by them. The power hike is announced in the range of 45 paise to Rs.1.57 per unit. Meanwhile, in a clarification in response to reports in a section of the media, APTransco stated that it came to the notice of the management of three power DISCOMs that certain sections of media is falsely canvassing that a consumer with 250 units of monthly consumption will be billed for his entire consumption at a rate applicable to his tariff slab in the schedule i.e Rs.8.75/unit, thus the monthly charges would be Rs.2187.5 which is exorbitantly higher than the actual billed amount of Rs.1225.75.

The Trasco urged all the domestic electricity consumers that only telescopic billing will be resorted to as per the directions and specification of APERC in the tariff order, and it is earnestly requested not to believe in fake/false news and hypothetical calculations coined by certain sections of the media. In the retail supply tariff order, APERC stated that the three distribution licensees (APSPDCL, APEPDCL & APCPDCL), vide their Aggregate Revenue Requirement for FY 2022-23, have projected an ARR of Rs.45,398.66 crore with a combined deficit of Rs.10,932.99 crore at current tariffs and a deficit of Rs.10,045.61 crore with proposed tariff hikes to domestic class of consumers.

he DISCOMS proposed to fill this gap with full cost tariff recoveries as per the G.O.Rt 161 dated 15.11.2021 and showed a net gap 'zero' in their filings. Many stakeholders have expressed apprehension about the full cost tariffs proposed by them. The commission, after due diligence, has determined the ARR for the three DISCOMS at Rs.45,972.70 crore with a net deficit of Rs.11123.21 crore after taking into consideration the additional revenue due to tariff rationalisation approved for the domestic class of consumers.