The Tata Power Corporation (TPC) on Monday made yet another offer to the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), the state government and Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra). The TPC said that they were willing to accept into their purview consumers whose monthly power consumption is below 100 units. The company said that this would be achieved by subsidising the wheeling charge.
An official statement put out by the TPC read, “We were disappointed to know that we have to maintain a status quo on supplying 360 megawatt of power to RInfra. This decision continues to ignore the needs of our consumers who have switched over from RInfra. It is preferential to only one set of the city’s consumers, and is in support of an inefficient distributor.”
“We have suggested several alternatives to the state government to address the current power crisis. Due to our growing consumer base, the TPC will require 160 MW for our distribution, so that our own consumers are not inconvenienced. The State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) has been asked to schedule the same,” said Mr S. Ramakrishnan, executive director of finance, TPC.
The other alternative that the TPC has offered is to continue to supply 200 MW to RInfra at regulated rates of Rs 3.50 till June 30, 2010.
From July 1, 2010 onwards, TPC officials suggested that they would utilise their 200 MW capacity by offering to take over four lakh RInfra consumers who are currently consuming less than 100 units per month, and also subsidise the wheeling charges for these customers. Currently, the consumers using below 100 units per month pay Rs 1.71 per unit as wheeling charge, but if they are taken over by the TPC, then the wheeling charges would be subsidised to Rs 1.3 per unit.
Mr S. Padmanabhan, executive director of operations, TPC said, “This will significantly reduce the tariff for low-end consumers and also reduce the tariff burden on RInfra customers,” he added.
Another suggestion by the TPC is to take over 2.8 lakh consumers in the identified areas along with the RInfra’s distribution infrastructure at book value. “This will reduce the electricity cost for the subsidised consumers by 40 paise to 130 paise per unit.
TPC officials even claim that they have been extending all possible cooperation toward finding a solution, but are not getting adequate response. According to these officials, the committee appointed by the state government did not consider their suggestions, neither did they refer them to the MERC for further study. All the TPC’s suggestions and/or offers are subject to approval from the MERC.
However, RInfra spokesperson claimed that the TPC was continuing to sell 100 MW of power outside Mumbai, and yet was complaining about a shortage of power for its distribution.
The spokesperson also said that TPC has been cherry-picking; out of the 30,000 suburban consumers that have migrated to the TPC, 90 per cent are non-residential consumers. None of the consumers who have migrated belong to slums, and not even a single consumer is from the area under the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking.
“The TPC thwarted RInfra’s efforts to set up power plants in Palghar, Saphale and Dahanu, claiming that they were to be the sole bulk supplier,” said the RInfra spokesperson.