The high-powered committee of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) has decided to urge the State Electricity Regulatory Commission to allow realisation of higher power tariff from domestic consumers, who consume more than 150 units a month.
The committee has also recommended imposing a 30 per cent power cut on industrial and commercial consumers. The order of the regulatory commission in an earlier recommendation for tariff hike is likely to come out soon. The commission is mulling a 30 per cent hike along with fixed charge from all consumers to reduce KSEB’s revenue deficit.
With the availability of water in the state’s hydel projects declining on account of poor monsoon, KSEB feels it may have to impose power cuts and load shedding to tide over the crisis.
According to state power minister Aryadan Muhamed, the government would convene an all-party meeting to discuss the power crisis in the state. According to board, the dams under it has so far received only 48 per cent of the projected inflow of water this monsoon.
This after 56 days of the current monsoon season.
The total water storage during the same period of last year was enough to generate 2,016 million units.
According to KSEB data, the dams have water that can be utilised to generate just 770 million units of electricity. The average daily consumption, however, has gone up to 55 million units.
The average daily rainfall across the state is below 11 mm, while the projected volume was between 12 mm and 30 mm. This had made the situation quite grave, said a senior official of the board.
KSEB will convene a high-level meeting on July 28 to take stock of the situation.
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