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Journalism of Courage
PUNE, APRIL 9: Agricultural tariffs have to go up if the MSEB has to get out of the financial doldrums it is in, says Shriram Damle, a former technical director of the organisation.
The subsidies that are given to the agricultural sector have now started affecting industrial and commercial consumption, says Damle. This sector has shown a negative growth.
After going through the proposed electricity tariffs submitted by the MSEB to the Mahrashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), Damle says that Rs 1000 crore could be mobilised by increasing the agricultural tariff to 127 paise per unit (p/u) from the present 46 p/u and to hold the subsidy at 180 p/u.
Additional tariff from other categories like domestic and rural water schemes, powerlooms could be utilised for raising Rs 618 crore (along with a token increase of 5 p/u for the industrial and commercial establishments).
MSEB should set a target, says Damle, to reduce losses by at least two to three per cent from the present 28 per cent.
It should save on the costly purchases from the Dabhol Power Corporation (DBC) by re-calculating the cost of power from the DPC and economise on revenue expenditure. According to him, cost of purchases from DPC has been estimated to be 475 paise p/u in 2000-2001.
With the recent fall in international oil prices, this rate has to be considerably reduced. Moreover, NTPC is offering power at very competitive prices and it should be preferred over the costly power from DBC, he said.
In Damle’s opinion, the heavily burdened industrial and commercial users have to be spared any increase in tariff, except for a token rise.
