In a major respite to its 94 lakh consumers in the state, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) or the erstwhile Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB), is learnt to have kept its power tariff unchanged for the fiscal 2009-10. It may be mentioned here that private sector power distributor Torrent Power Ltd has already proposed 15 per cent hike in power tariff.
The apex electricity company is said to have proposed no power tariff hike in its annual performance review filed with Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission (GERC) today.
"The apex electricity body has not demanded any increase in power tariff for 2009-10 in its proposal to the state power regulator", revealed sources close to the development.
"There is no change in tariff and it will be same as that of last year", added GUVNL sources. Last year, as part of multi-layer tariff plan GUVNL and affiliated distribution companies (DISCOMs) had approached GERC seeking 6 per cent, 4 per cent and 2 per cent power tariff hike for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively. Similarly, it had sought hike of 7.81 per cent, 6.90 per cent and 6.90 per cent over the period of three years. However, the power regulator approved only partial hike for 2008-09.
It is to be noted here that Gujarat's minister of state for energy and petrochemicals Saurabh Patel had earlier hinted that there would no change power tariff this fiscal.
In order to ease burden on its consumers, GUVNL deferred recovery of incremental fuel surcharge for the third and fourth quarter of 2008-09. It continued to levy fuel surcharge of 91 paise per unit as against the applicable fuel surcharge of Rs. 1.29 per unit and 99 paise per unit for third and fourth quarter respectively.
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Though the fuel surchage for the first quarter of 2009-10 works out to be 60 paise per unit in the wake of reduction in fuel surchage, GUVNL has decided to continue tocharge 91 paisa per unit from consumers in the second quarter to recover deferred fuel surcharge.
Thus, 31 paise per unit out of the total deferred surchage of 46 paise per unit will be recovered in the current quarter and remaining will be recovered in ensuing quarters when the fuel surchage is lower than 91 paise per unit. The fuel surcharge is likely to reduce in quarters to come.