Electric shock for Mumbaikars

Author: Shashank Rao Date: 26 Mar 2008

As demand rises this summer, cost of procuring more power means you may have to pay an electrifying hike of 0.80 paise per unit



plugged or unplugged? The hike in your electricity bill will be reflected only next year. The hike will affect those who consume more than 300 units per month
When temperatures rise over the next two months, ushering in a scorching Mumbai summer, your electricity bill, dear consumer, will also rise. To meet this rising demand for power in the island city, companies supplying power to Mumbai will be buying it at Rs 9 per unit from other states.

This means, the price per unit will shoot up to Rs 12, from the existing Rs 9 per unit, making it the costliest purchase ever. For a consumer, it will mean a direct hike of of 0.80 paise per unit.

Reliance Energy Limited (REL), Tata Power Company (TPC) and BEST have formed a committee called the Power Procurement Group (PPG), and will buy electricity from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and northeastern states through PPG. The committee caters to the power proposals sent by the three companies every day.

“It’s difficult to predict the exact per unit price hike, but prices could touch Rs 12 to Rs 13 per unit, if Mumbai and Maharashtra face extreme power crunch,” said a TPC official.

And that’s likely. The city’s demand for power shot up from 2,600 MW in March, April and May 2007 to an expected 2,900 MW in the same period this year; supply remained constant at 2,200 MW.