Telangana: Surcharge will make open access electricity costlier
TS transco is supplying power at Rs 7 per unit during day as also night.
Hyderabad: Once the TS government accepts the proposal of TS transco for an additional surcharge, the power purchased in open access system will be costlier than transco’s power. If power is available at Rs 2 per unit in the open access system after paying wheeling charges and cross subsidy, the unit cost will reach Rs 8, whereas power from transco is available at Rs 7 per unit. Transco officials said this decision will help in discouraging industrialists from purchasing power via the open access system.
After the Centre introduced this system, many TS transco consumers are purchasing power in the open market, particularly during night time.
TS transco is supplying power at Rs 7 per unit during day as also night. Generally, at night, power consumption will come down by 50 per cent compared to day. Due to this, in the open access system, power is available at Rs 2 per unit in the open market.
Some consumers are also purchasing power during day and night in the open market and some are purchasing power from transco during day and in the open market during night. For this, they have to pay wheeling charges and cross subsidy to TS transco. The wheeling charges on average are about Rs 2 per unit and cross subsidy Rs 1.
In open market, industrialists purchase power at the rate of Rs 2 per unit, but the cost will be Rs 5 per unit including wheeling charges and cross subsidy, whereas transco is supplying power at the rate of Rs 7 per unit.
By purchasing power in open access system, industrialists and commercial establishments are saving Rs 2 per unit.
After introduction of open access system, transco has lost about 1000MW of power in sales. To control the consumers, TS transco has proposed an additional surcharge of Rs 3 per unit on power purchasers in the open access system. With this, the total unit power cost will touch Rs 8 even if they purchase it at the rate of Rs 2 per unit in the open access system. Wheeling charges, cross subsidy and additional surcharge will come to Rs 6 and the total unit cost will be Rs 8. In this way, the purchasers have to pay an additional Rs 1, vis a vis the transco cost.
The Telangana government is lagging behind AP in electrification of rural households as a part of the Centre’s Electricity to All scheme. While tAP government has achieved 100 per cent electrification of rural households, the Telangana government has achieved 82 per cent.
According to a Union power ministry report, there are a few states, like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Goa, which have achieved 100 per cent household electrification. In TS, there are a total of 59,72,829 rural households and of this, 49,24,387 rural households were provided electricity and the balance is 10,48,442 households. In AP there are 1,11,75,445 rural households and all were provided electricity.
Section 6 of the Electricity Act 2003 says, “The state and the Centre shall endeavour to provide electricity to all areas including villages and hamlets”. The Centre launched the ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) for this.
rural areas with the objective of village electrification, providing access to households etc.
The central government has also taken up a joint initiative with all states and Union Territories for preparation of state-specific action plan for providing 24x7 power supply to all households. As a first step, electrification of all remaining un-electrified villages has been taken up in mission mode under DDUGJY. The next step is to ensure availability of adequate electricity to all the habitations in villages.
The power ministry report said all states that attended the power minister's conference in Goa in June 2016 had agreed to the timelines to provide access to all households in the respective states. Accordingly, the Telangana government has agreed to provide electricity to all households by March 2017, except for left wing extremism (LWE) affected areas. By March 2018, LWE areas also will have electricity provided to all households. The Telangana government has still to provide electricity to more than 10 lakh households in the rural areas.