Bescom buys costly power from pvt players

BANGALORE: If your power bills have been revised twice and are again looking upwards, this could be the reason: Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) has spent a whopping Rs 1,806.31 crore, buying power in the past six months alone. The utility has purchased more from private players than the amount approved by Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC).
Now, all electricity supply companies (Escoms) have filed a petition before KERC, seeking a hike of 88 paise per unit in power tariff.
While KERC had approved that 2436.2 mu be purchased from private players and sources outside the state for the same period, Bescom purchased 3627.52 mu, which means Bescom purchased 1191.32 mu more than what was approved.
Advocate Sridhar Prabhu has petitioned KERC, seeking an explanation why Bescom purchased power from outside, when KERC approved purchase from indigenous and cost-effective KPCL sources.
"Bescom claims to have done all this as per the Government Order No. EN 35 NCE 2011 Bangalore, dated January 24, 2011. It is understandable that hydel allocation from KPCL to Bescom was reduced by this order and reallocated to other Escoms. But can a government order compel Bescom to purchase from private players? Should Bescom not have regulated and supplied the available power as per the FKCCI order of KERC? Can GoK pass orders meddling with generation and distribution when KERC has all the powers under the Act?" the advocate questioned in his letter.
Bescom managing director P Manivannan said: "We are not able to purchase hydel power because of the government order. We have no autonomy to choose the kind of power we purchase. Other Escoms, like Gescom and Hescom, are given hydel power which is cheaper as they are facing a financial problem. We have to purchase high-cost power."
WHAT KERC APPROVED FOR BESCOM
For the financial year 2011, while KERC had approved 4,056.4 million units (mu) from KPCL Hydel, Bescom purchased only 3453.81 mu. KERC had also approved purchase of 6,058.7 mu from KPCL Thermal Power, but Bescom picked up only 5,270.43 mu.