Rana Gurjit accepts industry’s three main power tariff demands

The meeting had been called on the directions of the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh

Punjab Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh

Punjab’S Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh on Tuesday conceded some of the major demands of industry regarding power tariff in the state at a special meeting with industrialists from all over the state. An official spokesman of power department said that Punjab government has accepted three main demands regarding retrospective implementation of increased tariff, two part tariff system and power tariff at the cost of Rs 5 per unit as per Congress manifesto during this meeting.

The meeting had been called on the directions of the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, after the industrialists had expressed reservations about the steep hike in power tariff as recommended by the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission’s latest report. As far as retrospective implementation of increased tariff, the financial implication of increased tariff from April 2017 to October 2017 will be about Rs 600 crore. Out of this, government will bear the increased tariff to the tune of Rs 300 crore and rest will be borne by industry, said Gagan Chhabra, president of Mohali Industries Association.

It has also been decided that the two part tariff introduced by PSERC would be applicable from January 1, 2018. However, Maximum Overall Rate (MOR) will be fixed for Medium Scale (MS) and Large Scale (LS) category industry from the January 1, 2018 to March 31, 2018. This will be Rs 6.57 /unit for MS and Rs. 6.89/unit for LS as fixed by PSERC for the year 2017-18. In this case, Monthly Minimum Charges (MMC) as determined by the PSERC shall be applicable.

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Regarding the demand of power tariff at the cost of Rs 5 per unit as per the Congress manifesto, it has been decided that the rate of tariff for industry would be Rs 5 per KVAH as variable cost with no change in fixed cost as announced by PSERC for the year 2017-18. “This will have an impact of Rs 1100 to Rs 1150 crore per year. This will be effective from January 1, 2018 and will be applicable to MS and LS category Industry only, said a statement issued by the power department.

Among those who attended the meeting were Additional Chief Secretary Power Satish Chandra, Principal Secretary Finance Anirudh Tiwari, CMD Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) A Venu Prasad, Secretary Industries Rakesh Verma, Director Finance SC Arora and representatives of various industrial organisations of Punjab.

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