Power subsidy amount not defined in PSERC tariff order
Bahadurjeet Singh /Rupnagar
The Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) in its tariff order for the year 2022-23 has not worked out any amount of subsidy payable by the Punjab government to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).
As per the tariff order “The grant of any subsidy to any consumer or class of consumers by the government in the tariff determined by the Commission in this tariff order shall be governed by the provisions of section 65 of Electricity Act 2003 . The commission takes note of the subsidy announced by the government in line with section 65, PSPCL may recover the subsidy from the government based on the tariff of the relevant section”. This is because the state government has not yet confirmed the amount of subsidy payable by it.
It may be mentioned that PSPCL in its annual revenue requirement (ARR) had worked out a subsidy of Rs. 13929 crores based on the announcements of the congress government.This includes Rs. 6936 crores for agriculture, about Rs.4000 for domestic and balance about Rs.3000 crores for industrial consumers. The defaulting amount of subsidy for the last financial year 2021-22 is Rs.7118 crores.
The annual revenue requirement of PSPCL has been worked out by the commission at Rs.34845 crores.The major expenditure is of power purchase amounting to Rs. 23258 crore, employees expenses Rs.8023 crores and fuel cost for state thermal plants Rs.1613 crores.
The average cost of supply by PSPCL to different consumers has been worked out as Rs. 6.48 per unit. PSERC has worked out the total metered sale of power in the state as 43266 million units and to agriculture sector 12255 million units. The net requirement of power in the state will be 65016 million units after considering transmission and distribution losses.
The supply to domestic consumers is expected to br 14631 million units.The supply to Large supply industry is 18188 million units, medium supply industry 3792 million units, ,and small power industry it is 1312 million units.
April 6,2022
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