Service charges may be added to power bill
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Just four months after a steep hike in electricity charges, consumers may have to shell out more as the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) Ltd proposes to hike the charges levied on consumers for various services provided by it.
Tangedco has moved a petition with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (Tnerc), seeking to increase miscellaneous charges collected from consumers for providing services, including new service connection (SC), meter rent and meter caution deposit.
The corporation has sought revision of miscellaneous charges in view of increased operational costs, increased cost of inputs, wages/salaries of employees and inflation, while the charges continued to remain the same for the past 11 years, from 1999.
Tangedco has introduced electricity customer service charges for expenditure incurred by it on account of meter reading, preparation of bills, maintenance of customer accounts and others.
It proposes to collect Rs 10 per month from low-tension (LT) category and Rs 100 per month for LTCT services besides Rs 250 per month from high-tension (HT) category.
The corporation wants to collect separate charges for single-phase and three-phase SCs besides introducing charges for hut and agricultural services. For new domestic, single-phase SCs, Tangedco proposes to hike charges from Rs 250 to Rs 900.
Hut consumers have to pay Rs 200 for new SCs while agricultural consumers have to pay Rs 900 for single-phase SCs and Rs 1,600-Rs 3,000 for three-phase SC.
Tangedco has increased registration-cum-procession charges for new service connection and additional or reduction in load.
The charges for LT category is hiked from Rs 50 per service to Rs 500 per service, and for huts, Rs 5 per service to Rs 200 per service.
Apart from meter rental charges, it has hiked charges for reconnection and replacement of damaged seals, meter glass, changing and shifting of meter boards.
Security deposit is also up: for single-phase domestic consumers, it will go up from Rs 200 per service to Rs 900 per service and from Rs 600 per kw to Rs 900 per kw for three-phase consumers.
“The revision of miscellaneous charges for services was long overdue. The costs have gone up substantially in the past 11 years,” reasoned a senior Tangedco official.
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