Now power in Bengaluru gets costlier

The decision to collect 43 paisa per unit is in addition to the earlier fuel cost adjustment (FCA) charges that were announced in June.

Hyderabad: Nothing seems to be quite fine in Bengaluru, with the city, recently devastated by floods, now is looking down the barrel at heftier power bills.

The threat of a hike in electricity bills began a few days ago, after some noticed a small public notice, published in some media by the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom).

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The notice announced fuel cost adjustment (FCA) charges from October 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. It meant the company would collect an additional 43 paisa per unit during the billing period from October 1 to March 31 after recognizing increase in FCA charges along with rise in overall power purchase cost from April to June 2022.

The decision to collect 43 paisa per unit is in addition to the earlier fuel cost adjustment (FCA) charges that were announced in June. The Bescom’s decision has evoked sharp criticism from the people and small scale industry owners in Karnataka.

In a tweet, Bengaluru-based social media influencer Kamran said: “Electricity in #Bengaluru to cost 43 paisa more per unit from October 1. Our bills will go up by 10-20%. This is not a hike in electricity prices. This money is going to be used to buy MLAs. Meanwhile, in Delhi, people are getting free electricity as a return to taxes they pay to the govt.”

It’s not only the domestic consumers but also the small scale industry owners who were angry over the decision of Bescom, which is responsible for distribution of power in eight districts including Bengaluru urban, Bengaluru rural and Chikkaballapur.

The industries’ owners went to the extent of saying that they would shift from the jurisdiction of Bescom due to power tariff hikes.

Now, compare this to the power tariff in Telangana, which is nominal compared to half a dozen States including Andhra Pradesh in the country.

Without imposing any additional charges on consumers, Telangana is ensuring uninterrupted power supply for all categories after its formation in 2014, a situation completely different from when the region had power holidays for industries and power cuts for domestic and agriculture sectors in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

The Transco is spending Rs.7.30 paisa per unit to supply power to 12 different categories of consumers including agriculture, domestic and industrial sectors but it is getting only Rs.6 per unit resulting in loss of Rs.1.30 paisa. Yet, quality power was being supplied to consumers, officials said.

Further, Telangana is the only State supplying 24-hour quality power for the agriculture sector and helping farmers on all fronts, including supply of water to meet their irrigation requirements.

When the State was formed, the contracted capacity was only 7778 MW and after seven years it has gone up to 16,623 MW. Before the formation of Telangana, there were power cuts lasting for over four to eight hours to the domestic sector and power holiday twice in a week for the industrial sector.

The agriculture sector used to get only four to six hours of power supply. Complaints pertaining to explosion of transformers and burning of electrical motors were common. Incidents of farmers either getting electrocuted or killed due to snake bite were frequent in the erstwhile AP.

After the new State of Telangana was formed, this changed, with the State government strengthening the energy department and later lifting power cuts completely. For power distribution, new sub-stations were established on a large scale apart from providing additional transformers and laying electrical lines in the State.

The State government has succeeded in supplying quality power to all sectors after providing necessary infrastructure to Transco and discoms, officials added.