BANGALORE: P Manivannan, Managing Director, Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) has welcomed the recent hike in tariff announced by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) across the state by an average of 27.35 paise per unit. The MD, thanking the KERC for recognising the need for a tariff hike despite objections, stated that customer service quality would improve henceforth as 50 per cent of the vacant posts would now be filled up. He stated that the shift to High Voltage distribution systems (11Kv) from Low Voltage (440Kv) systems would help BESCOM in cutting down power theft. However, Manivannan raised issues like Time of Day Metering, which was not made mandatory by the KERC inspite of various representations by BESCOM. Time of Day Metering is a method by which rates paid by consumers for power usage during peak hours would be higher than off peak hours. This system would help ensure proper load distribution as people would switch over to off peak hours in order to pay low tariffs and this would reduce the peak load on the system. He also raised doubts on the approved limit of 26000 million units of power purchase set by the KERC on BESCOM. “This means that we will have to buy less power. In this case, either the consumers will have to use less power or we will have to resort to restrictive measures like load shedding,” he said in an email response. The increase approved by the KERC works out to about `81 a month for households that consume 200 units. This is an effective increase of a meagre 6.4 per cent since the 27 paise includes 12 paise already approved in the last year, opines Manivannan. He added that BESCOM would seek guidance from the KERC on these issues.
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