Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company Limited (GESCOM) submitted its Annual Performance Review (APR) for 2022-23 to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) in November last year and sought the latter’s permission to hike power tariffs by 163 paise per unit across all category of consumers for 2024-25 to fill the expenditure-revenue gap of ₹1592.40 crore expected for the year.
The GESCOM’s move has, however, triggered discontentment among power consumers. Instead of collecting the energy subsidies and Ganga Kalyan dues from the government and the government-owned corporations, they allege, the GESCOM is simply transferring the financial burden to consumers who sincerely pay their power bills.
As per the information collected by The Hindu, the government is yet to pay ₹1400.44 crore energy subsidy dues to GESCOM for supplying the power to farmers’ irrigation pump sets.
By the end of the financial year 2021-22, the government’s energy subsidy dues payable to GESCOM grew to ₹3,604.09 crore (dues of ₹1206.62 crore accumulated from previous years plus the current year’s claim of ₹2397.47 crore). The government released ₹3135.17 crore bringing down the dues to ₹468.92 crore in one shot.
Next year, the subsidy dues again grew to ₹734.28 crore as the government released only ₹2436.47 crore, which was even less than the current year’s charges of ₹2701.84 crore. In 2023-24, (till December 2023), the dues swelled to ₹1400 crore as the government paid only ₹2494.38 crore against the current period’s charges of ₹3160.53 crore plus pending dues of ₹734.28 crore.
The same is the case with the subsidies under Ganga Kalyan, the scheme launched to provide irrigation through the exploitation of groundwater. The GESCOM put in place the required infrastructure such as laying power supply lines for the scheme being implemented by different state-owned development corporations but is paid partially for the work.
The Ganga Kalyan dues that stood at ₹1.015 crore in 2002-03 have now swelled to ₹567.452 crore because of the partial payments being made by the State-owned corporations.
Interestingly, the GESCOM has never claimed the interest on the pending dues nor has the KERC ever appeared to bother about it. This also irked the power consumers as they were forced to pay the interest on delayed payment of their power bills.
If calculated at just 12% per annum, the GESCOM will have to receive an additional ₹1821.75 crore from the government as the interest for the energy subsidy dues for supplying power to irrigation pump sets and ₹411.353 crore from different State-owned development corporations as interest for implementing the Ganga Kalyan scheme. The outstanding dues for supplying power to irrigation pump sets then grow to ₹3222.18 crore and subsidy dues under Ganga Kalyana to ₹922.725 crores. The GESCOM’s gross dues receivable from the government and the State-owned corporations will then cross the ₹4,000 crore mark.
As experts put it, there is no provision in the Electricity Act 2003 to exempt the government or government-owned corporations from paying the interest on dues. They demand the GESCOM claim and collect the interest from the government and its corporations just as it does in the case of common power consumers.
Deepak Gala, an activist and power expert, points to the 2018 tariff order issued by the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission which asked the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited to pay the interest on pending dues to the power supplying company.
“Just as it levies interest on the dues of its power consumers and pays interest to the loans it borrows from the financial institutions, the GESCOM must claim and collect both the dues and interest on the dues. It is KERC’s responsibility to ensure that the interest on subsidy dues is paid to GESCOM. If all the dues and the interest on dues payable to it are collected, the GESCOM can reduce the power tariff and sell it for much cheaper rates, let alone hiking the rates,” Mr. Gala told The Hindu.
