Discoms milk Telangana industries

Hyderabad: Telangana power distribution companies (Discoms) have collected around Rs 900 crore more from commercial and industrial consumers, railways and airports in the last five years by not following cross-subsidy rules.

The National Tariff Policy envisaged that tariff for all categories should range within plus or minus 20 per cent of the average cost of supply by the year 2010-11.

However, CAG found that Discoms did not adhere to these guidelines on the cross subsidy and the tariff charged to certain categories was 189 per cent more than the cost of power.

In its reply, the state government told the CAG that all efforts were being made to adhere to the norms. Discoms, however, were more than generous on hotels, restaurants, shops, hospitals and other high tension category consumers and lost Rs 120 crore per year for supplying power to them.

“Southern Power Distribution Company (SPDCL) has made an undue benefit to the tune of Rs 120 crore to shops, business houses, hospitals, hotels, hostels restaurants and others located in IT parks by converting the High Tension connections as High Tension-1 category,” the CAG report said.

The dues from government departments, local bodies are mounting every year. As on March 30, 2016, an amount of Rs 1,232 crore was overdue.