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Maharashtra shows the way, regulator allows hike of 80-90p per unit in FY15 to pay past dues

The Maharashtra government may want to make life easier for Mumbaikars by lowering power tariffs — it recently cut rates for consumers in other parts of the state — but with the city’s discoms ‘under-recovering’ revenues because of higher fuel and electricity purchase costs, tariffs for Mumbaikars may actually go up.

While the cost of acquiring electricity has gone up over the years for discoms, tariff hikes have not kept pace. As a result, consumers in Mumbai now owe discoms a fairly large INR 11,585 crore as at the end of FY12. The under-recovery or regulatory assets (RA) — the difference between the revenues realised by discoms and revenues required post permitted costs and returns — could rise further. The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) is yet to recognise RAs beyond FY12. In the case of Delhi, while RAs till FY12 were INR 15,151 crore, they rose by a likely  INR 4,354 crore in FY13.

At the end of FY12, Tata Power Distribution (TPC-D) had RAs of INR 1,757 crore including carrying costs while the number for Reliance Infra was INR 5,549 crore. Unlike in Delhi, where high RAs have resulted in a situation where BSES Yamuna Power and BSES Rajdhani Power are facing a disruption in the supply of power from producer NTPC, since the discoms have not been able to pay their dues, in Mumbai the regulator has been proactive. Regulatory orders over the last couple of years have allowed discoms (Tata Power, R-Infra and BEST)) to recover these assets through increased electricity charges, over a three- to six-year period.

In the case of R-Infra, for instance, this means a power tariff hike of INR 0.87/unit in FY15 and INR 0.82/unit in FY16. So, were the Maharashtra government to increase subsidies by R1 per unit in FY15, the city’s customers would not even feel it. And this INR 0.87/unit hike is over and above any hike in costs that the discoms may incur due to an increase in fuel and other costs. Between FY11 and FY14 (see graphic) coal prices rose by 82 Percent while gas prices went up by 41 Percent and RLNG by 152 Percent.

Source-On Request