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• The Kerala government on Wednesday is likely to allow the State Electricity Board to approach the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) with a plea for a substantial hike in power tariff.The board is expecting clearance for a hike of 35 paise per unit. Power tariff in the state was last increased by 43% in 2002 when A K Antony was the chief minister.Power minister Aryadan Mohammed told TOI that the government would accept the board's demand for power tariff hike. "Tariff hike is inevitable. We will give our green signal and it's for the SERC to decide the percentage of hike," he said.

• The hike, KSEB feels, is urgently needed to foot its mounting bill for buying additional quota to power the state during the summer with the average consumption reading 62MU a day. While KSEB's monthly revenue is around Rs 530 crore, it spends about Rs 480 crore on power purchase alone. Interestingly, KSEB has sought the government's advice on how to raise funds for drawing the high cost power in the days ahead.KSEB top brass has told Aryadan that the board would no longer be able to purchase power at high cost and distribute it to customers at less than one fourth of the actual cost. Price of power per MW has crossed Rs 18 the other day and the board is spending Rs 4.5 crore a day for 450MW power that it draws from the NTPC thermal power plant at Kayamkulam. Following this, the board has decided to purchase power from Kayamkulam only till Wednesday.

• "We have clearly told the minister that either the government should pump in at least Rs 150 crore to the board or allow the board to explore other options such as power cut and load shedding," a source in the board said. At the same time, power tariff hike is not just a demand, but an undeniable necessity," a source in the board said.According to the minister, the government would give another try to get more power from the Central quota before introducing any power restrictions.

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