Naya Saal, Naya Vasool
Milk prices already hiked, electricity bills to go up in a few months
Hyderabad: 'Hello Telangana,' the Year 2022 has commenced. Telangana Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao wished that New Year-2022 may be filled with the best of happiness, health and prosperity. But the first cup of coffee or tea denizens would have enjoyed on the wintry morning would have burnt a deeper hole in their pocket.
Reason: The State Government has hiked the price of Vijaya milk by Rs 2 per litre. Three months down the lane, people should get ready for a triple shock as the power charges may go up as the government has proposed a hike in power tariff and customer charges and new concept of demand charges.
If the TS Electricity Regulatory Commission accepts the proposals of the Discoms, the use of separate electricity sub-meters for lifts and borewells to draw water in domestic housing complexes and commercial establishments like hotels, gyms and malls would be removed. All utility services will have one single meter. This would result in higher slab as the combined consumption would be high burning a deeper hole in the pockets of consumers.
The power utilities had recently submitted tariff proposals to the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSREC) seeking the commission's approval to hike power tariff by Rs 50 paise per unit in the domestic power sector and Rs 1 per unit for commercial and industrial consumers and increase customer charges. At present, the minimum customer charge is Rs 25 which would become Rs 40 and the maximum charges would be Rs 160. In addition, a minimum demand charge of Rs 15 will be collected based on the capacity of the power connection. For instance, the consumer who uses one KW (Kilo Watt) power would have to pay Rs 15 as demand charge every month.
Not just that, officials said that for the installation of new main meters, consumers will have to pay at least Rs 5,000 per meter.
When asked about it, people and opposition leaders reacted saying, the government which had announced supply of 20,000 litres of free water per family would be collecting the cost incurred by hiking the power tariff. "Ek haath se do, Dusri haath se Lo," they quipped.