Goemkarponn Desk
PANAJI: In a major relief to the power consumers, the State Cabinet on Wednesday resolved not to implement the electricity tariff hike order of the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) for the current financial year.
The Cabinet meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant decided to pass the subsidy of around Rs 120 crore for a period of 12 months to the consumers.
The JERC tariff order for the FY 2020-21, dated May 19,2020 had approved hike of around 5.31 per cent, which was to be implemented from June 1, 2020 onwards but could not be done due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The tariff order was supposed to be implemented for this financial year.
In a press conference held after the cabinet meeting, Sawant said that Cabinet decided to keep in abeyance the tariff order for the financial year from April 1,2021 to March 31, 2022 except for levy of Tariff of Rs.3.50/ Unit as per Tariff Order for FY 2021-22 to Consumer category “Electric Vehicle Charging Station”.
The cabinet decided to implement kVAh based tariff for HT/EHT Categories and to grant of subsidy to all categories of consumers to nullify the impact of hike in Tariff Order for FY 2021-22 issued by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission for the State of Goa and Union Territories.
“A amount of Rs 120 crore subsidy would be passed on to the consumers,” he said.
Though Goa has a total of 4.5 lakh domestic consumers out of a total of 5.5 lakh consumers, their total consumption is less than 25%. The power connections to industries are either in the high or low tension category.
With this decision, the tariff order of 2019-20 continues to remain in force.