The Telangana government has recently made a decision to pay Rs 12,718.40 crore true-up charges to Discoms, providing a significant relief to power consumers. This payment comes after the true-up charges were pending for the last 15 years. Additionally, the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) has accepted the State government’s proposals, including the decision to pay the true-up charges and the reduction of power tariff for religious structures such as temples, masjids, churches, gurudwaras and crematoriums. The reduction in power tariff for religious structures will be from Rs 7 per unit to Rs 5 from April 1. While religious places will have modified tariff, the fixed charges of Rs 21 have been increased to Rs 30 under LT VII B category. The discoms have placed this recommendation in their aggregate revenue requirements (ARR) for 2023-24 that they filed with the TSERC following requests from the managements of religious places.
The TSERC has also stated that there will not be any change in the retail supply tariff for the financial year 2023-24. Commission Chairman T Sriranga Rao has informed that Discoms have reported that the State government has agreed to bear the subsidy related to irrigation and other welfare programmes for the next five years without burdening the discoms. The State government has also given its consent for subsidy commitment of Rs 9,124.82 crore for the 2023-24 fiscal.
According to power tariff proposals submitted by the discoms to the TSERC last December, annual aggregate revenue requirement (ARR) for the coming financial year stood at Rs 54,060 crore. Energy requirement is 83,111 million units (MU) and sales projection stands at 73,618 MU. TSSPDCL submitted ARR for Rs 36,963 crore and TSNPDCL for Rs 17,095 crore. Total revenue expected from the present tariff is Rs 43,525 crore, with the revenue gap of Rs 10,535 crore.
