Haryana Govt to bear power subsidy burden of Rs 5,284 cr

The Haryana government will bear financial burden to the tune of Rs 5,284 crore on account of supply of power at subsidised rate to the farm sector during 2014-15, as per the new power tariff announced by the state power regulator.
According to the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC), power subsidy amounting to Rs 5,284 crore will be borne by the state government.
The discoms will recover Rs 91.2 crore as revenue from agriculture pump set consumers, while energy being supplied to them stands at 8,907 million units.
The power regulator in its tariff order has asked the state-owned power discoms to recover power tariff from agriculture sector at a rate of Rs 6.64 per kWh if the state government fails to release subsidy in the accordance with the Electricity Act, 2003.

HERC has also decided that the Haryana discoms -- UHBVN and DHBVN -- could even disconnect power connections of farm sector because of delay in payment of subsidy.
"The commission observes that due to delay in payment of subsidy committed by the state government as well as poor collection efficiency of revenue billed at the subsidised tariff, the burden in the form of additional working capital requirement is passed on to the other consumers.

"Hence the commission decides that the discoms shall enforce all the measures including disconnection of AP consumers on the same lines as is done in the case of other consumers," it said in the order.

As per information provided by discoms, the Haryana government is yet to pay RE Subsidy amounting to about Rs 1,800 crore on account of concessional tariff extended to AP consumers including FSA liabilities of the AP consumers as well as concessional tariff extended to the DS consumers in the last quarter of 2013-14.
In its new tariff, HERC has brought down farm tariff from 25 paise to 10 paise per unit with motor up to 15 BHP.
While domestic category was spared from power tariff hike though electricity rates for non-domestic (more than 20 KW load) and industrial categories were raised by 50 paise per unit.