Brace yourself to pay more for using electricity during peak hours

Confirming the development, JERC chairman S K Chaturvedi told Chandigarh Newsline that the business plan submitted by the Chandigarh electricity department had been approved and an official order would be issued shortly after completing the required formalities.

Under the current system, the tariff revision is done annually by the commission. However, after MYT comes into force, the tariff will be fixed for a period of three years. The department will have to file a tariff petition for control period of three years from April 2016-17 to 2018-19 based on the approved cost of aggregate revenue requirement (ARR) and expected revenue from tariff in the control period.
UT chief engineer S K Chadha said that they would have to file a tariff petition within a period of one month after getting a copy of the order from the commission. The tariff petition will be approved by the commission by March and implemented from April 2106.

The electricity department caters to a total of 2.12 lakh consumers of which 1.75 lakh are in the domestic category. Of the total, there is regular billing of around 94% of consumers. The present power demand of Chandigarh is 320 mega watt (MW). The peak demand in the financial year touched 395 MW and is expected to reach 406 MW in 2015-16. For 2016-17, 17-18 and 18-19, the peak demand is projected to be 426 MW, 450 MW and 475 MW, respectively.

Despite a lot of emphasis from the commission since 2013, the implementation of MYT has been marred by delays, forcing the commission to push the deadline.