Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: A day after Delhiites were given ‘electric shock’ in the form of a steep power tariff hike, the government on Wednesday came to the rescue announcing subsidy.
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said her government would give subsidy on power rates in the national capital.
However, the quantum of subsidy has yet to be decided.
A meeting of the Cabinet has been called to take a decision on the same, Dikshit added.
Power tariff for domestic consumers were on Tuesday hiked by a steep 26 per cent -- the fourth increase in 10 months -- in a shock to people already burdened by high inflation and petrol price rise.
The new rates would be effective from July 1. The actual hike for domestic consumers is 24.15 per cent but an additional eight per cent surcharge that would be levied on the overall bill would effectively take the increase to 26 per cent, Delhi Electricity RegulatoryCommission (DERC) Chairman PD Sudhakar said.
The average hike would be 20.87 per cent if the commercial and industrial sectors are also taken into account.
The domestic consumers will be the hardest hit as tariff for the segment has been hiked the most compared to commercial and industrial categories.
The regulator in August last year had hiked the tariff by 22 per cent for all categories of consumers. The tariff was hiked by five per cent in February and by upto two per cent in May to adjust the power purchase cost of the distribution companies.
As per the new rates, a domestic consumer will be charged Rs 3.70 per unit for first 200 units of power instead of current Rs 3. Consumers having a monthly usage of upto 400 units will have to pay Rs 4.80 per unit of power.
For consumption above 400 units, Rs 6.40 per unit will be charged instead of current Rs 5.70, Sudhakar said.
The increase may also lead to hike in Metro fares and water charges as DERC announced separate rates for power being supplied to these two entities.
The monthly fixed charges for consumers have also been hiked significantly. For a consumer having a sanctioned load of upto 2 kilowatts, the rate tariff has been increased from Rs 30 to Rs 40 while for consumers having sanctioned load between 2 kilowatts to 5 kilowatts they will have to pay Rs 100 as fixed charges instead of the current Rs 75.
The fixed charges for consumers having a sanctioned load of above five kilowatt will be Rs 20 instead of current Rs 15.
The DERC announced separate rates for industrial units, agricultural activities, public lighting etc.
For Delhi Metro, rates have been increased to Rs 5 per unit from Rs 3.80 per unit while for Delhi Jal Board it has been hiked to Rs 7.25 per unit from Rs 5.60 for load of upto 10 kilowatts.
For load between 10 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts, per unit of power would cost Rs 6.60 while Rs 8 has been fixed per unit for load beyond 100 kilowatts.
(With PTI inputs)
