There will be no hike in power tariff for the year 2018-19, announced Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) on Thursday while rejecting the demand for upward revision made by distribution utilities as well as Gridco’s plea for increase of bulk power supply charges to the distribution companies.

ERC’s Director (Regulatory Affairs) Priyabrat Patnaik confirmed the news to reporters here after rejecting proposals of power generation and distribution companies to increase power tariffs.

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“The power tariff will remain unchanged for domestic consumers, commercial and industrial units for this year,” Patnaik added. He also informed that 1per cent rebate over and above the normal rebate if consumers pay through online.

The power tariff for domestic consumers having consumption up to 50 units has remained unchanged at Rs 2.50 paise per unit. Last year, the OERC had hiked power tariff by 10 paise per unit.

It had fixed the tariff at Rs 2.50 per unit for the first 50 units, Rs 4.30 per unit for consumption above 50 units upto 200 units, Rs 5.30 per unit for consumption above 200 to 400 units and Rs 5.70 per unit for consumption above 400 units.

The same tariff will continue for the year 2018-19. Significantly, the OERC has approved a distribution loss of 21.32 per cent against the proposed loss of 26.32 per cent by the distribution companies. The AT&C loss has been pegged at 22.11 per cent as against a 28.13 per cent proposed by the distribution companies.

The Commission has not accepted the proposed ARR of DISCOMS of Rs. 11,265.90. Cr. and approved an amount of Rs.9562.63 Cr. The Avg. Bulk Supply Price of GRIDCO has been reduced from 277.21 paise/unit in FY 2017-18 to 276.66 paise /unit in FY 2018-19 against the GRIDCO’s proposal of 353.26 paise/unit.

The average power purchase price of GRIDCO has increased from 246.42 Paise/unit in 2017-18 to 259.34 Paise/unit in 2018-19 against the Gridco’s proposal of 284.77 Paise/unit.

OERC has also passed orders and rates for Open Access Charges (Transmission/ wheeling Charges, Surcharge and Additional Surcharge applicable to open access customers for use of Intra-state transmission/ distribution system) which shall be effective from 1st April, 2018.