Uttar Pradesh Hikes Power Tariff; Opposition Cries Foul

The Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission today announced hike in power tariff barely a day after the civic polls concluded in the state, drawing flak from the opposition parties. The average hike for domestic consumers, to be implemented soon, is 12 percent.

The tariff for urban domestic electricity consumers has been raised by 9 percent, UPERC Chairman SK Agarwal said at a press conference.

For the metered rural domestic consumers, the tariff has been hiked to Rs 3 per unit for first 100 units and Rs 4.50 per unit beyond that. The order encourages consumers to shift to metered connections, Agarwal said.

Admitting that the hike for rural consumers was hefty, he said it was because the rates in the past have been very low. “We have for the first time brought this change,” he said.

Principal secretary power, and chairman of UP Power Corporation Alok Kumar later said urban poor who consume up to 100 units will also have to pay at the rate of Rs 3 per unit.

Justifying the hike, Kumar said on studying the power rates of other states it was found that rural (domestic) consumers in the state were paying only 42 percent of the power supply cost while in Madhya Pradesh they were paying 86 percent, Rajasthan 100 percent, Haryana 53 percent and Punjab 80 percent. Even with the new rates, the consumers in this category will be charged only 52 percent, he said.

Referring to the industrial rates, he said they had always stressed that it were higher as compared to other states because of which they faced problems in selling their produce and was also an impediment in setting up new units.

“Keeping this in mind and for facilitating industrial development and creation of new job opportunities, this section of consumers has been exempted from tariff revision,” he said.

Besides, a 15 percent exemption has been given to the industrial units which run in one shift and are mostly small and medium industries between 5 am to 1 pm in the afternoon in summers, he said.

Terming the hike a “dictatorial attitude” of the BJP government, Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said it will further add to the problems of the common people. “People were already reeling under severe price rise and now this hike will make their lives more difficult for them,” Chaudhary said.

The Congress lashed out at the BJP government for burdening the consumers already troubled by the note ban and the Goods and Services Tax. It did even wait till the model code of conduct was lifted from the state, the opposition party said.

Uttar Pradesh had a three-phase polling for the civic bodies on Nov. 22, 26 and 29. The results are scheduled to be announced tomorrow. “This amounts to backstabbing the people and the BJP government's vulgar votebank politics...if they had to hike the rates why did they wait for the elections to be over,” Congress spokesman Dwijendra Tripathi said.

Refuting the charges, BJP spokesman Manish Shukla, however, said the previous SP government did not raise the tariff just to keep its voters in good humour although it was necessary to meet losses. “Unless we have enough funds, how can we fulfil out promise of power-to-all by end of 2018,” he asked.

Earlier this year, the Uttar Pradesh government and the Centre had signed a pact to provide 24-hour power to district headquarters, 20 hours to tehsil headquarters and 18 hours to all villages in the state. The pact was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and then Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal.