IMPHAL, Feb 20: The Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited has proposed to increase power tariff by 5 percent from the existing schedule, according to the Chairmen of the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission for Manipur and Mizoram.
The schedule was proposed to A Chhawnmawia, chairman of JERC in a public hearing held at Imphal Hotel today on a petition of the Manipur State Power Distribution Limited (MSPDL) for determination of ARR and Transmission tariff for FY 2015 and Petition of Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited for determination of ARR and retail tariff for FY 2015 in morning and evening shifts respectively.
A Chawnmawia, chairman said to media persons while interacting in the sidelines at Hotel that the new tariff for the state will be announced before March financial year. He said that today`™s proposal was submitted to him as per the petition from the distribution company of Manipur.
He said the commission do want to hear the response from the public and his department welcomes comments and suggestions from the public.
After hearing the petition and if it is reasonable, a new tariff structure will be fixed for the state. The new tariff will be fixed by JERC with the assistance of the Administration Staff College of India, Hyderabad.
During the public hearing, the Additional CE of electricity mentioned that there are 4.6 lacs households as consumers of electricity in Manipur, among them only 2.3 lacs consumer are found registered. Among them only 1.9 lacs households are resident domestic consumers.
Altogether a approximate 80 percent electric connections are illegal at the moment. To set things right, the company has started a regularization drive in the state from last one month, he said.
The expenditure on purchase of electricity by State is estimated at about Rs. 300 crores a year. This amounts to 1000 million units from outside state. Around Rs. 24 crores are spent per month on buying and we needed to collect at least Rs. 18 crores to Rs 20 crores from the consumers. This being the case, an increase of legal consumer base is very much needed, he added.
The power corporation has purposed a new tariff fixation of 5% increase from the existing tariff schedule which is lowest minimum tariff ever, he said.
In today discussion the tariff recovery mechanism, distribution system infrastructure, need for CCC (custom care centre) to work at least 5 persons 24X7 hours from the middle week of March 2015 etc, were deliberated upon.
Payment mechanism through online payment is under process in the state. This infrastructure will be completed in one or two months. The Point of Sell (POS), which is the gateway of payment, will also be expanded in the state, the deliberations concluded.
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