FOPSIA strongly opposes decision of PSERC to increase power tariff upto 12%

By Badish Jindal, President, Federation of Punjab Small Industries Associations (FOPSIA)

We strongly oppose the decision of PSERC to increase power tariff upto 12%.
The industry was waiting for some big announcement of relief by PSERC after the governments decision of giving power to industries @ 5 per unit. But on the contrary ther PSERC gave a big jolt to the industries.
The commission orders the increase of 12% (from 5.47 to 6.12) for Small Power Connections, 9.5% (5.99 to 6.57) for Medium Power Connections and 8.5% (6.35 to 6.89) for large Supply Consumers.
We also condemn the commission order to recover the increased rate from 1 april 2017, (in equal installments from Oct 2017 to June 2018). The increase should be implemented from the announced date as consumers are not responsible for delay of commissions tariff order.
There is a big scam seems in fuel expenses as its cost is counted at 2.95 Rs per unit whereas many companies in India are supplying the power at much below this price.
The average total cost of supply in Punjab is 6.42Rs per unit which is on very higher side.
Its indeed shocking that board is go on decreasing its own power generation just to give the benefits to the private power producers.
The other main reason of high cost of power is faulty purchase agreements with private power producers the PSPCL is purchasing power at very high rate and also paying the high fix charges to these companies. The PSPCL is paying 1677 crore as fix charges to TSPL Talwandi Sabo along with power cost @ 2.65 per unit. PSPCL is paying 1321 crores as fix charges to NPL Rajpura along with power cost @ 2.27Rs per unit,, similarly PSPCL is paying 704 crores to GVK Govindwal Sahib along with the power cost @2.94 per units.
As the PSPCL is not ia a position to purchase their committed quantity they are paying 1.49Rs extra to TSPL, 1.30 Rs Extra to NPL and 1.92Rs per unit to GVK.
The whole burden of these additional charges will be bear by the consumers.
The PSPCL is paying a heavy interest on its loans which is 3462 crores, this comes to around 12% of its total expenditure. Further in the time where the banks are offering the loans to the big companies at around 6 to 7% the PSPCL is paying 12.35% interest on its loans.
There is a balance of 2909 crores of subsidy to be paid by the government for last year, and this year the government will have to pay 8007 crores as power subsidy to agriculture and other categories. The PSPCL is paying interest on the amounts delayed by the government and recovering the same from the consumers, which is illegal.
FOPSIA will file a case against the retrospective implementation of this power tariff to PSPCL.