Electricity rates to vary every month in Uttarakhand; know details
The burden of buying expensive electricity from the market is now going to fall on the pocket of the general public. The effect of power purchase will be visible on the bills of the consumers in the same month in which UPCL will buy costlier power from the market. However, not more than 20 percent of the electricity bill will be recovered from the consumers.
Uttarakhand Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued new rules for fuel and power purchase cost adjustment in the state. Under which, when UPCL will buy expensive electricity from the market, its effect will be visible in the bill of that month. Till now, the Electricity Regulatory Commission used to fix the budget for power purchase every year for the Energy Corporation. Apart from this, if there was any other expenditure, its effect on the consumers would have been in the form of increased rates of electricity from the next year. Last year, when the rates of electricity increased in the market, the Corporation sent a proposal to increase the rates in the middle of the year itself, which was also approved.
The central government has also issued a rule that arrangements should be made to take the amount of expensive electricity from the people from the same month itself, so that electricity does not have to be borrowed from the market. On which the Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued instructions to implement this system in the state.
Neeraj Sati, secretary of the Electricity Regulatory Commission, says that under this new arrangement, the difference in expenditure after the budget fixed for total power purchase, will be included in every month’s bill. If the extra money is not spent then there will be no change in the bill. He informed that the burden of expensive electricity every month on electricity consumers will not be more than 20 percent of the total average electricity rate. By making this arrangement, the Commission has tried to rein in the Uttaranchal Power Corporation Limited. With this new system of the Commission, electricity consumers will not have to pay more than 20 percent of the cost of electricity from the total electricity rate.
