Mumbai: MERC partly allows Tata Power's plea for tariff hikes, power to get dearer

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The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) on Thursday partly allowed Tata Power's petition to hike electricity charges for its consumers in the financial capital, reported the PTI.

The regulator's order will give some relief to lower-end consumers, and the tariff hikes will be over 50 per cent as well, as per the PTI.

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The revisions are for FY25, and effective from April 1.

Earlier, the power utility, which serves over 7.5 lakh consumers in the city, had proposed a "rationalization" of tariffs where it was pitching for more than doubling the rate per unit paid by those consuming up to 100 units per month, while the extent of the proposed hike was lower for those at the higher end.

In a statement issued after the MERC order, Tata Power said even after the order, its tariff for the residential category of up to 100 units remains "the lowest" when compared with competition.

It, however, conceded that its tariff for the 101-300 units a month category is "slightly higher than other private player".

The company competes with an Adani Group arm which is also engaged in power distribution in the city.

Meanwhile, the government on Thursday announced the extension of Rs 300 per LPG cylinder subsidy to poor women under the Ujjwala Yojana for the next fiscal starting April 1, the PTI reported.

The government had in October last year hiked the subsidy from Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinders for up to 12 refills per year to Rs 300 per bottle. The Rs 300 per cylinder subsidy was for the current fiscal, which ends on March 31, as per the PTI.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has now decided to extend this subsidy to 2024-25, Union Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters in Delhi.

The move, likely to benefit nearly 10 crore families, will cost the government Rs 12,000 crore.

The general elections are due in April-May.

To make Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), a clean cooking fuel, available to rural and deprived poor households, the government launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) in May 2016 to provide deposit-free LPG connections to adult women of poor households.

While the connection was provided for free, the beneficiaries had to purchase LPG refills at market price.

As fuel prices soared, the government in May 2022 provided a Rs 200 per cylinder subsidy to PMUY beneficiaries. This was increased to Rs 300 in October 2023.

(with PTI inputs)