No move to hike power tariff, govt set to bear subsidy brunt

Hyderabad: The Telangana government and the DISCOMS have no proposal to hike power tariff in 2025-2026 financial year. The officials clarified in the public hearing conducted by Telangana Electricity Regulation Commission here on Friday that the government will bear all power subsidy burden without increasing the power tariff.

In the public hearing conducted, the Commission Chairman Justice D Nagarjuna, TGSPDCL Chairman and Managing Director Musharraf Farooqui and JMD C Srinivasa Rao said that the revenue gap is expected to be around Rs 9,758 crore due to increased free power consumption in farming and domestic consumer sectors. He said that the government itself will fill this revenue gap through subsidy and it was the reason for discom not proposing the tariff hike.

Stating the highest demand in the state has reached 17,162 MW this year and that it will go up during the peak summer, the CMD said that the government has entered into power swap agreements with other power companies in the country. As a result, the TGSPDCL saved Rs 1,614 crore due to power swap agreements.

He also explained the measures to strengthen the power distribution which included strengthening of the network at a cost of Rs 578.88 crore, distribution losses reduced to 8.38 per cent, power purchase cost reduced to Rs 5.76 paise and reduced the failure rate to 1.55 percent and the DTR failure rate to 5.70 percent.

S Priyadarshini, Deputy Secretary, Energy Department, informed the Commission that the state government is committed to provide necessary financial support to the Telangana Power Companies for the financial year 2025-26 as per the provisions of Rule 65 of the Electricity Act, 2003, in accordance with the tariff order approved by the Commission. She said that the government would not increase power tariff for any category of consumers in the financial year 2025-26 and that it will provide necessary financial support to the power sector companies.