Pay surcharge for power use from April to Oct 20

PUDUCHERRY: The Puducherry Electricity Department has announced that all categories  of consumers, except those under the subsidized ‘One Hut-One Bulb’ and Agriculture scheme, have to pay a power surcharge of Rs. 34.25 paise per unit for the period between April 2010 and October 2010. This is a move by the Government to raise Rs. 46.40 crore as additional revenue to meet the budgetary expenditure.According to a public notice issued by the Superintending Engineer, the arrears  would be recovered from the consumers in equal instalments between September 2011 and March 2012.Justifying the need for the incremental power surcharge, the official stated that nearly 75 per cent of the power requirements of Puducherry are met by various central generating stations. In the recent past, the cost of purchase of power from these stations, increased due to the increase in the cost of fuel, like coal and gas.To compensate for the increase in the cost of purchase of power, as per the provisions in the Tariff Order 2009-10, the Department filed a petition on December 10 2010, before the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission for the State of Goa and Union Territories, seeking its nod to pass on the incremental fuel surcharge for that period.   The commission approved the petition and also directed the Government to recover the arrears from the consumers in equal instalments between September 2011 and March 2012.