Staff Correspondent
MANGALORE: Major reservoirs, including Linganamakki, the State’s biggest hydel reservoir, are full, thanks to the copious rainfall across Karnataka.
But this is unlikely to result in any tangible benefit to electricity consumers, who are facing the prospects of power tariff hike sought by various electricity supply companies. Bharathlal Meena, Managing Director of Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited and Chairman of all electricity supply companies, told presspersons here on Saturday that there was no correlation between hydel reservoirs getting filled up and power tariff hike sought by KPTCL and electricity supply companies. The annual electricity consumption had increased by 20 per cent in 2006-07 and was expected to increase by the same amount during 2007-08, he said.
Deficit
There had been no major addition in power generation sources across Karnataka in the past few years. The State was facing a deficit situation in terms of electricity requirement, he said. Besides, the storage capacity of the hydel reservoirs was limited. The State was using hydel power as against the costlier thermal power only during peak load hours as of now, he said.
It was for the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission to decide on the final tariff after hearing the views of consumers as well as the parties which had sought the hike, he said.
