Date:22/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/22/stories/2008082258550300.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

KWA’s power bill to go up

G. Mahadevan

KSEB imposes power curbs

Use of power by HT, EHT consumers to be restricted
For use beyond the limit, the tariff will be more

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The monthly power bill of the Kerala Water Authority is all set to surge by about Rs.6 crore, consequent to the KSEB’s decision to restrict power usage by High Tension and Extra High Tension consumers to 75 per cent of their average monthly consumption.

As per this decision, the power tariff will be Rs.3 per Kilo Watt Hour if the total consumption is below the limit prescribed by the Electricity Board. For every KWH above this, the tariff would be anything between Rs.9 and Rs.15.

All pump houses/filtering plants of the KWA come under either the ET or EHT categories. Officials of the KWA point out that the KWA is a 24X 7 consumer and the power consumption of a pump house cannot be reduced. The only way for KWA facilities to reduce power usage will be to stop the pumping of drinking water for a few hours each day. This, however, is not an option that the KWA can exercise.

At the KWA facility at Aruvikkara, for instance, there are four HT connections. At normal rates (Rs.3 per KWH) the monthly power bill there is Rs.42 lakh. With the new differential pricing practice the power bill at Aruvikkara has jumped by Rs.15.70 lakhs.

It is not just the drinking water pumping stations that will have to cough up more money for their power bills. The KWA’s sewage pumping stations too are bulk consumers of power.

For an agency that is already struggling to pay its power bills, this steep jump in tariff might just prove to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

The surge in the power bill at Aruvikkara has forced the KWA to write to the government asking for an exemption from the KSEB rule. “We will make a formal request to the power minister soon,” Minister for Water Resources N.K. Premachandran said here on Thursday. The KWA should have been automatically exempted from such steps, he added.