The Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) on Thursday concluded public hearing on the annual revenue requirement applications of power generators, transmission and distribution companies proposing tariff hike for 2016-17.
On the last day of the hearing, Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) made a strong plea for hike in retail supply tariff or reduction in bulk supply price to meet a revenue gap of Rs 1065.92 crore in the coming financial year.
NESCO has projected power purchase requirement of 5583.11 MU and sale of 4187.10 MU (distribution loss being 25 per cent) for 2016-17. With the existing tariff and proposed sales, the revenue earning by the licensee will be Rs 2072.22 crore.
Estimating its annual revenue requirement (ARR) at Rs 4071.84 crore, the distribution licensee has projected bulk power purchase of 8904.87 million unit (MU) and sale of 6085.94 MU for retail business for 2016-17 while pegging the techno-commercial loss at about 30 per cent.
The distribution utility urged OERC to direct the State Government to provide subsidy to compensate the tariff loss for providing subsidised power to different categories of consumers including BPL households.
It has also proposed for creating a contingency fund to meet expenses arising out of natural disasters like cyclone, flood and earthquake.
The three other distribution companies – NESCO, SOUTHCO and WESCO – had made similar demand for hike in the retail supply tariff.
The company has estimated its revenue requirement for the coming fiscal at Rs 2482.13 crore and projects a revenue gap of Rs 409.91 crore at the existing tariff.
Similarly, SOUTHCO and WESCO have envisaged a revenue gap of Rs 565.06 crore and Rs 501.77 crore respectively during next fiscal at the existing tariff rate.
The southern utility has projected power purchase requirement of 3550 MU while the sale will be 2307.66 MU with the distribution loss of 35 per cent.
With the existing tariff and proposed sales, the revenue earning by the licensee will be Rs 665.89 crore while revenue requirement is estimated at Rs 1560.95 crore.
WESCO has projected power purchase requirement of 7350.00 MU while the sales during the ensuing fiscal will be 5087.00 MU with a projected distribution loss of 30.79 per cent. With the existing tariff, its revenue earning will be Rs 2607.14 crore as against a requirement of Rs 3108.91 crore.
Opposing the tariff hike proposal of the discoms, Orissa Rajya Bidyut Upavokta Mahasangh (a consumers’ body) said there is no need for price increase because the discoms have failed to bring down their loss level even after 15 years of privatisation of the distribution business.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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