With a steep 17 pc hike in coal prices, power bills for Mumbai customers is expected to shoot up as both Tata Power and Reliance Energy — the two suppliers of electricity to the island city — use coal to fuel their power stations in Trombay and Dahanu respectively.Ditto is the case with other metros like Delhi. National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) will be hit hard as its 13 plants are run with coal as fuel.‘‘We have not calculated the exact rise in our costs. but a 17 pc rise in coal prices is too much to afford,’’ says an REL official. Any rise in power tariff will have to be approved by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), the power regulator in the state.Tata Power fires 5,000 tonnes of coal everyday in its Trombay plant. Any hike in coal prices will hit its costs. As NTPC is supplying power to various States through the national grid, States will find their power bill going up soon.Power companies expect the increase in generation cost to be much higher with even diesel now costing more. Power sector analysts say the increase could be as high as 10-11 paise per unit. It is impossible for power companies to absorb this kind of increase, and they will have to revise tariffs.Power companies consume 78 pc of government-owned Coal India’s produce which has announced the huge price rise. As price of coal used in the generation of thermal power has risen by 15 pc, and diesel price hike are also expected to lead to an increase in freight charges, power generation is likely to become dearer.Announcing the increase in coal prices, Coal India chairman Sashi Kumar said it was going to push up the cost of generating one unit of power by 6 paise, and would have little impact on the common man. ‘‘In the power sector, on an average, this will lead to an increase of about six paise in the cost of generation of one unit of electricity,’’ said Singh.The coal price hike will also hit cement and steel companies badly. It will put pressure on the inflation level which has already crossed the 5 per cent mark.
