Members of the Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry at a news conference in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, April 2: The Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) today demanded that government should provide subsidy to the power sector to soften the effect of the proposed power tariff hike on industries.

Addressing a news conference, UCCI president Ramesh Mohapatra said the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC), a quasi-judicial body, should review its decision on the power hike.

“If the OERC does not review its decision, the government should provide subsidy to offset the extra burden that the industries would have to bear on account of the hike in power tariff,” Mohapatra added.

Regretting the fact that the reform in power sector, which was introduced in the late 1990s, has failed to yield the desired result, Mohapatra said: “The transmission and distribution (T&D) loss is still on a higher side and pegged around 39 per cent. Instead of appealing to enhance the power hike, the distribution companies should try to reduce the T&D loss.”

Citing that the electricity tariff has been increased across board for all the consumers by almost 30 to 40 per cent, except agriculture and agro-based industries, Mohapatra said no industries would be survived at this point.

“Apart from the substantial increases in the tariff for the year 2010-11, there was also an increase by 15 to 25 per cent last year. If one includes it, the power tariff has gone up by more than 50 per cent in last two years,” he said.

Pointing finger both at the government and the distribution companies for their failure to provide quality power to the consumers, he said that as per the Shovan Kanungo Committee the T&D loss should be confined to 22 per cent. “The inefficiency of the distribution company in containing the T&D losses is loaded unreasonably on the consumers and the industrial houses have been affected,” he said.

UCCI senior member R.P. Mohapatra also accused the OERC of not implementing the National Electricity Policy and Electricity Act, 2003 in letter and spirit. “ The power intensive units in Bengal and Andhra Pradesh are paying lesser power tariff compared to our state. While the respective units in these states are paying the tariff at Rs 2.50 per unit, the industries here will have to pay Rs 4.45 per unit which is unfortunate,” he said.

In another development, the high court stayed the OERC’s decision on power tariff which was going to be implemented from April 1.