Visakhapatnam: eVehicles to get power at 6.70/unit

Visakhapatnam: To promote the usage of environmental-friendly e-vehicles for transport, the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission has decided to continue the tariff for them at Rs 6.70 per unit. The DISCOMs are however entitled to recover only 90 per cent of this tariff from the charging stations in order to keep electricity at affordable price to the e-vehicle owners.

APERC chairman CV Nagarjuna Reddy, while releasing the retail supply tariff order for the financial year 2021-22. said that a slew of subsidies that sum up to Rs 9,091.36 crore will be borne by the State Government from 2021-22 financial year. In addition to this, the State Government has agreed to bear a subsidy burden of Rs 7,297.08 crore in respect of agricultural consumers eligible for free supply of power in 2021-22. As a result, this category of consumers will continue to avail the benefit of free power supply for the financial year. The DISCOMs were directed to establish round-the-clock cell dedicated to monitor real time market prices to replace costlier sources with cheaper sources from the exchanges to optimise the overall power purchase cost. The proposal of the DISCOMs to merge aqua hatcheries, aqua feed mixing plants, poultry hatcheries and poultry feed mixing plants in the industry general category was accepted, while the proposal to bill apartment consumers under a single point HT connection remained rejected.

The three distribution licensees (APSPDCL, APEPDCL and APCPDCL) projected a combined deficit of Rs 12,549 crore at current tariffs and a deficit of Rs 11,741.18 crore at the proposed tariffs with a hike to certain categories of consumers and Renewable Energy Service Company.

The Commission determined a net deficit of Rs 7,433.80 crore for the three licensees, thus avoiding a possible burden of Rs 4,307.38 crore on the consumers and the state government.