Bengaluru residents, your electricity bills will get more expensive from June onwards. This after the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) on Thursday announced a hike of 33 paise per unit for Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) customers.
Officials said this would effectively mean that expenses towards electricity for households will increase by 4.9% on average for domestic users.
BESCOM facilitates electricity supply in eight districts of Karnataka – Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Chikkaballapura, Kolar, Davanagere, Tumakuru, Chitradurga and Ramanagara.
At present, customers who use 0-30 units pay Rs 3.5 per unit and those using 30-100 units pay Rs 4.95 per unit. The tariff for the next two slabs of 101-200 units and 201-300 units are Rs 6.5 and Rs 7.55 per unit respectively.
Officials said the price hike was necessary to match the overall higher input costs of power production.
The same hike of 33 paise per unit on average will also be applicable to residents of Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubbali and Gulbarga.
BESCOM had initially sought a hike of Rs 1.01 per unit but this was faced with a lot of public opposition. There was also outrage about the frequent power outages affecting the city.
During public hearing meetings, BESCOM officials maintained that a hike was necessary to keep up with purchase and transmission costs.
This hikes come after a similar hike in October 2018, which was incidentally the second hike in 2018 itself. That time the hike was 14 paise per unit for BESCOM customers.
The increase in tariff last time was attributed to the rising price of coal. That time the KERC granted permission to five electricity supply companies to collect fuel adjustment charges (FAC) in their bills.
Meanwhile, BESCOM has also sought restructuring of its pricing slabs to a more simplified structure. A decision on that is still awaited by the regulatory authority.