The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Transco, discoms submit revised tariff proposals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Transco, discoms submit revised tariff proposals

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 7. The Andhra Pradesh Transco and the four distribution companies here today submitted revised tariff proposals for 2005-06 before the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, projecting the revenue from the "paying categories" of the agriculture sector such as corporate farmers and income tax assessees at Rs. 67.6 crores per annum.

The utilities filed the fresh proposals to absorb the impact of the changes in the free power policy announced by the Government recently. P. M. K. Gandhi, Director (Regulatory Affairs), filed the proposals on behalf of the Transco.

The proposals formalised the Government's announcement restricting free power supply to small and marginal farmers. No changes in tariff rates were proposed for domestic, commercial, industrial and other sectors.

The expected revenue from the paying categories will reduce the deficit which was projected originally at Rs. 1,906 crores, to Rs. 1,838 crores.

Experts happy

This extra income is seen as pittance compared to the Transco budget but experts feel that avoiding the free benefit to big farmers will go a long way in disciplining the system. The other paying categories are those farmers having holdings larger than 2.5 acres under irrigation projects and those owning more than 3 pumpsets in dryland areas.

For the first time, the Transco projected the number of agriculture connections falling under the "paying category" at 2.62 lakhs and those owned by the small and marginal farmers at 22.21 lakhs. This was based on a field survey conducted by the companies.

New farm connections

In the proposals, the Transco and the discoms announced that they would release 60,000 additional agriculture connections for this year ending March 31 and 75,000 in 2005-06. The new connections would be required to fix meters. It said it was insisting on farmers to install capacitors, frictionless foot-valves, plastic pipes and ISI-marked pumpsets, with a view to saving energy for eligible ones who were in the queue to get new connections.

The Transco CMD, Rachael Chatterjee, said the changes introduced in the policy for the agriculture sector would give a fillip to energy conservation, besides protecting the system and ensuring quality and reliable supply.

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