Now, brace for hiked power tariff

LUCKNOW: Get ready to shell out more for every unit of electricity you consume.
The Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) will announce revised power tariff on Thursday, a day after the third phase of urban local bodies elections. TOI had reported on October 20 that power tariff would be revised after municipal polls. UPERC will announce the revised rates after taking a final call on tariff proposal submitted by the UPPCL in August this year.
The corporation had proposed a hike of 12 % in power tariff for urban domestic consumers and almost four times for the unmetered rural consumers.
The tariff plan has, in fact, proposed an average hike of 22.66% in power tariff, the highest till date. According to the tariff proposal, UPPCL proposed to increase the electricity rates on all four slabs—from Rs 4.40 per unit to Rs 4.90 for up to 150 units, from Rs 4.95 to Rs 5.40 per unit between 151 and 300 units, from Rs 5.60 to Rs 6.20 per unit between 301 and 500 units, and from Rs 6.20 to Rs 6.70 per unit above 500 units.
The corporation has also proposed to increase the fixed charge for every kilo watt (KW) of load from Rs 90 to Rs 100. UPPCL had proposed a steep hike in case of unmetered rural consumers. Those with load upto 2KW are proposed to see its tariff rising from Rs 180 per KW to Rs 650 per KW per month. Likewise, consumers having unmetered load of more than 2 KW will pay Rs 800 per KW instead of the existing Rs 200. Sources said UPPCL wants to discourage the use of unmetered power supply in rural areas where scheduled power supply has increased from 12 hours to 18 hours.
The raise is proposed to be effective till March 31, 2018, after which the UPPCL may revise the rates.