BENGALURU: Electricity tariff has been increased by 30 paise per unit with from April 1 this year, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission announced on Wednesday.The hike includes 10-paise-per-unit increase across all slabs and upward revision in the fixed charges in the range of Rs 10 to Rs 20 per kW/HP/kVA in respect of all category of installations.
Some slabs have been tinkered with.
The 10-paise hike in energy charges is effective for all LT, HT industrial, commercial consumers and educational institutions and hospitals.
If you were paying Rs 1,565 for 212 units under the old regime, the bill under new tariff will be Rs 1,585.
If you were paying Rs 3,734 for 441 units, you will now pay Rs 3,811.
KERC said the hike was inevitable due to increase in operational costs, cost of power purchase and operation & maintenance costs.
The revision comes on the back of a 40-paise-per-unit hike in November.
According to the KERC, the hike for 2021-22 results in an average increase of 3.8%, whereas Escoms (electricity supply companies) had sought an average increase of 135 paise per unit or 17.3%.
The hike in energy and fixed charges is uniform across both rural and urban areas of all Escoms.
Since the state is currently under lockdown, the arrears towards revision of tariff for April and May will be recovered in October and November bills without levying any interest.
KERC has revised the first slab of 0-30 units to 0-50units and the second, 31-100 units to 51- 100 units.
According to KERC, the slab revision will benefit those consuming less energy.
To encourage the use of clean energy and reduction of carbon emission in the state and to encourage commuters to use public transport, the commission has not increased the tariff of power supplied to BMRCL which runs metro trains.