The effort by the Electricity Department to offset the financial burden of domestic electricity consumers arising due to the hike in tariff by providing subsidy would push up the annual expenditure by around ₹26 crore.
Amid the growing criticism against the frequent hikes imposed by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Puducherry government on Monday (September 2, 2024) night announced its decision to provide subsidy to all categories of domestic consumers. The decision would entail domestic consumers to get a subsidy of 45 paise per unit for the power consumed up to 100 units. The subsidy would allow the consumers to pay same energy charges at the rate of ₹2.25 per unit up to 100 units without any increase.
Similarly, a subsidy of 40 paise per unit would be extended to power consumed from 101 units to 200 units per month allowing the consumer to pay at the rate of ₹3.60 per unit as against the rate of ₹4 per unit fixed by the JERC. There are around 4 lakh domestic electricity consumers across all categories in the Union Territory.
The government will have to spend ₹26 crore annually for providing subsidy. However, during the current financial year, the government would be spending only ₹21 crore as the new tariff proposed by JERC was from June 16, for this current financial year, an official told The Hindu.
“Already, the government is providing 50% subsidy to domestic consumers drawing less than 100 units of power per month. Those availing the benefit under the category would be around 22,000 consumers and they would be also eligible for the subsidy scheme announced to offset the tariff hike,” he said.
The latest announcement on power subsidy would be in addition to the ongoing free power meant for agriculture farmers. Annually, the government would incur an expenditure of around ₹6.6 crores to provide free power to around 7,100 farmers. The government has set aside around ₹2,509 crores for purchase of power in the budget during the current financial year. Around ₹180 crore to ₹190 crore is spent monthly for procurement of electricity from Central generating stations.
The JERC has determined the average cost of supply for the year 2024-25 in UT as ₹6.39 per unit. The average cost of supply for the previous year was only ₹5.92 per unit. The increase was due to cost of power procured from various Central generating units. In the previous year, the department has collected a sum of ₹2,283 crores from consumers for the power supplied, the official said.
