Already battling high inflation, people in Delhi will have to shell out more for electricity from July 1 with the city's power regulator DERC on Tuesday announcing a steep hike of around 26 per cent in tariff for domestic consumers.

The tariff has been hiked by 24.15 per cent for domestic consumers while an additional eight per cent surcharge has been levied on the overall bill which would effectively take the increase to 26 per cent, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) Chairman P D Sudhakar said.

The average hike, including the commercial and industrial sector would be 20.87 per cent for all categories. The new rates would come into effect from July 1.

"We have decided to increase the tariff considering the difficult financial position of the power distribution companies," Sudhakar said announcing the hike.

As per the new rates, a domestic consumer will be charged Rs 3.70 per unit for first 200 units of power instead of current Rs 3. Consumers having a monthly usages of upto 400 units will have to pay Rs 4.80 per unit of power.

Earlier, consumers having usages upto 400 unit were paying Rs 3 per unit for first 200 unit and then Rs 4.80 per unit was charged for consumption upto 400 units. For consumption above 400 units, Rs 6.40 per unit will be charged instead of current Rs 5.70, Sudhakar said.

The monthly fixed charges for consumers having a sanctioned load of upto 2 kilowatts have been increased from Rs 30 to Rs 40 while consumers having sanctioned load between 2 kilowatts to 5 kilowatts will have to pay Rs 100 as fixed charges instead of current Rs 75.

The fixed charges for consumers having a sanctioned load of above five kilowatt will have to pay Rs 20 instead of current Rs 15.

This was fourth time that power tariff has been hiked since August last year.

The DERC had in August last year hiked the tariff by 22 per cent hike for all categories of consumers. The tariff was raised by five per cent in February and by upto two per cent in May this year to adjust the power purchase cost of the distribution companies. The hike for domestic consumers is the highest among all segments.

The hike for commercial usages is 19.49 per cent while for industrial consumption, it is 20.2 per cent. A DERC official said the levying of eight per cent fuel surcharge means a consumer will have to pay Rs 8 extra if his overall bill comes to Rs 100. However the surcharge will not be applicable for areas where NDMC supplies power.

Sudhakar said DERC will adjust the rates after every three months, depending power purchase cost. He said power purchase cost keeps changing due to increase or decrease in cost of fuel used for production of power.

For non-domestic consumers, the rate has been increased from Rs 6.50 to Rs 7.60 per unit of power for those having a sanctioned load upto 10 kilo watt while per unit of power has hiked to Rs 7.25 from Rs 6.10 per unit for consumers having sanctioned load between 10 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts.

The fixed monthly charge for domestic consumers having a sanctioned load upto 10 kilo watt has been increased from Rs 70 to Rs 100 while it has been retained at Rs 150 for those having load between 10 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts.

The DERC announced separate rates for industrial units, agricultural activities and public lighting etc. For Delhi Metro, rates have been increased to Rs 5 per unit from Rs 3.80 per unit while for Delhi Jal Board it has been hiked to Rs 7.25 per unit from Rs 5.60 for load of upto 10 kilowatts.

For load between 10 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts, per unit of power would cost Rs 6.60 while Rs 8 has been fixed per unit for load beyond 100 kilowatts.