The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Fuel charge exemption for small power consumers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 05, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Fuel charge exemption for small power consumers

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, AUG. 4. Responding to representations, the Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, has announced the Government decision to get all electricity consumers coming under the 0-50 units slab per month exempted from the collection of arrears of fuel surcharge adjustment (FSA) for the period April 2003 to 2004.

The Government will release a subsidy of Rs. 9 crores to Discoms to give the exemption benefit to 74 lakh consumers of the lowest slab who constitute 70 per cent of electricity consumers in the State.

Instalments

Through a press note issued by his office, the Chief Minister also announced that the FSA arrears for the 13-month period due from the consumers coming under other slabs would be allowed in 12 equated instalments instead of six months as now.

The fuel surcharge collection by the APTransco, which the Government approved yesterday, will go from March 2005, the time limit of six months given for realising the Rs. 92 crores towards the overall cost difference of power purchase from suppliers.

If the Transco wants, it can collect the amount in full in a single month. However, the State Electricity Regulatory Commission avoided this and spread the burden over six months up to March, keeping consumers' interest in mind.

Surcharge burden

As for an assessment, the fuel surcharge burden works out to Rs. 4 per month in a case of consumer with a monthly consumption of 50 units and goes up to Rs. 16 or a little more for those coming under the bracket accounting for an intake of 200 units. There is no telescopic or non-telescopic method involved in calculating the burden of a household. "It is simply multiplying the number of uints consumed by 8.3 paise," explains an official.

The Rs. 92 crores is the result of the accumulation of the cost variation for 13 months -- difference between the actual cost borne by the plants and the is paid to them by the Transco. However, there is no guarantee that the utility will not resort to this collection again.

Cost variation

There are chances of "cost variation" in the coming days also due to the usual five factors --increase in price of variables like coal, heavy demand by consumers following dry spells, hike in fixed cost due to low PLF of a plant, hydro-thermal mismatch which may recur if the monsoon fails as happened last year, and availability from external sources such as NTPC and Gridco of Orissa from where Andhra Pradesh normally buys power during emergencies.

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