Prepare for power hikes every year: Tamil Nadu Electricity Board

People in the state are not willing to pay more for power because supply is erratic and outages are increasing.

Attending Tamil Nadu Electricity Board's first public hearing on its tariff revision proposal on Monday, consumers said the power utility's lethargy had led to distribution losses. The board, they said, should not pass on the cost of the losses to the end user.

However, TNEB managing director Rajeev Ranjan said regular tariff hikes are inevitable as the power utility is in a financial mess. "Consumers should be prepared for reasonable hikes every year," he said. TNEB has losses of 40,000 crore and owes more than 10,000 crore to power vendors, but Ranjan said the power situation is likely to improve soon.

The public hearing was held by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) between 10.30am and 6pm at the Raja Annamalai Mandram. A majority of the participants were domestic and agricultural consumers.

Thirumurugan, a participant, said that instead of hiking the tariff for domestic and small commercial consumers, TNEB should increase the tariff for multinational companies instead of giving them subsidized power.

He criticized TNERC too, alleging that it had not been able to regularize purchase of power from private players. "The commission should be closed down. Commission members who supported power purchase from private firms and caused a loss of 50,000 crore to the power utility should be arrested," he said. Thirumurugan asked for the date and venue of hearings to be proper communicated.

A P Srinivasan of Consumer Protection Forum said consumers would be ready to pay more if power supply is uninterrupted. "Those who seek temporary supply should not be provided power from the grid, they should be asked to use diesel generators instead," he said. "In the domestic sector, every tenant should have separate meters. This will reduce distribution losses."

Southern Railway chief distribution engineer Chandrasekhar said railway stations in the state would be in the commercial category according to the tariff proposal. He asked for the railways to be included in some other category.

TNEB chief Ranjan said the hike was inevitable as the power tariff had not been increased for over a decade. "The revenue and supply deficit is 2 per unit. There are 55,000 vacancies in the board. If revenue improves, the service will also get better," he said. He said TNEB has tried to give consumers a cushion.

Ranjan said the Kudankulam nuclear power project it is very important for the energy security of the nation.