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KSEB moots thermal surcharge

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The southwest monsoon’s continued indifference towards the State has prompted the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) to propose temporary thermal surcharges ranging from 50 paise to Rs.2 on each unit of electricity.

The KSEB decided to place the proposal before the government and the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) after an emergency meeting of its board of directors here on Wednesday.

The proposal exempts domestic customers using up to 40 units of electricity, agricultural customers, orphanages and families below the poverty line from the surcharge.

The proposed per unit surcharge is 50 paise for domestic customers using between 40 and 80 units, Re.1 for those using between 80 and 300 units and Rs.2 for those using more than 300 units a month. For commercial customers and industrial customers, it is Rs.2 per unit.

The KSEB board meeting assessed that power generation at the hydroelectric stations in the State would fall by nearly 3,400 million units during the water year (June 2008 to May 2009) because of the failure of the first half of the monsoon. This means buying that much thermal energy to meet the overall demand in the State, that too the costliest available in the Indian market. The best of permutations and combinations possible means an additional financial burden of Rs.2,330 crore for the board.

The KSEB will also propose asking high tension and extra high tension consumers (mainly industries) to pay for 25 per cent of their consumption the actual price of the high-cost energy purchased by the board.

This will mean that such consumers will have to pay nearly double the present tariff for 25 per cent of their consumption. The present tariff will continue for the remaining 75 per cent. Even with all these measures, half the total revenue gap of Rs.2,330 would remain.

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