Bescom tells panel why power tariff must go up

Cost rise in purchasing electricity and high peak load pushed up power tariff by 88 paise, said Bescom.

This was disclosed during the first day of the public hearing conducted by the KERC on Monday. 

In a presentation, P Manivannan, managing director of Bescom, showed how 47% of the company’s expenditure went into buying power from sources outside the state leaving only 3% for operation, maintenance and salaries. “The cost of purchase has gone up from Rs4.3 to Rs5.1 which is almost 48% and jumped about 18.3% more than last year,” said Manivannan based on projections on Annual Revenue Report made by the company.

He said that the company was seeing two types of demands. The number of new connections has grown by about 15% and demand for uninterrupted power too has soared. These demands can be met if the company purchases 48% more power from outside.

“The demand for uninterrupted power questions Bescom’s credibility from consumers’ side. But the consumption patterns show steep load curves. While from 12 midnight to 4 am, the consumption is only 1000 mw in Bangalore city, it goes up to 1800 mw from 6 am to 8 am. This 800 mw increase is a steep demand within a very short time and we do not have the storing facility. The generators do not produce according to the consumption patterns,” said Manivannan.

The peak load in April 2011 was 3700 mw which he said was hard to maintain. He had to opt for load shedding or purchase power at higher costs or implement power exchange management.

“The country does not have a proper power exchange. Otherwise that would have been an ideal situation for us,” he said.

The KERC has allowed losses up to 14.75% but Bescom faces 15% losses.  He also showed the commission how the company was able to raise the standards in operations. It could reduce the time taken to attend power cuts to 20 minutes. Also 94% of complaints were attended within 20 minutes.

Only 6% of the complaints received on a day was sorted out in an hour; 73% complaints were attended in an hour and 27% cases were attended by taking more than an hour. Accident rate of workers which stood at 26 in 2010 came down to 22 in 2011.