The Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) has declined to entertain petitions filed by the two power distribution companies (Discoms) in the State for determination of Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) for the years 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 stating that the time period for which they were sought is already lapsed.
All the three petitions were filed before the Commission last year with a plea to condone the delay in filing the ARRs and to grant them an opportunity to submit the tariff proposals at a later date.
The petitions came up for hearing before the Commission on Monday and the order was pronounced on Tuesday.
When contacted, senior officials of the power utilities stated that hearing the petitions on determination of ARRs, particularly for 2019-20 and 2020-21, has become redundant since the annual accounts of the two Discoms have already been audited and finalised by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and only three months time is left for completion of the 2021-22 fiscal. Even the accounts for 2021-22 would go for CAG audit anytime after April 1 next.
Asked about the impact of rejection of the ARRs for three years on the Discoms, the officials explained that the action would translate into some financial loss to the utilities as they would not be in a position to recover charges such as true-up and surcharge at a future date since the ERC has considered the ARRs and the retail supply tariffs (RST) were not filed.
“The ERC might not entertain any plea from the Discoms on the three ARRs since the ARRs were not considered by it and the RSTs were not filed at all,” the senior executive said unwilling to be quoted.
Even the ARR for 2021-22 would also serve no purpose from the point of view of determination now since the ERC would have to finalise both the ARR and RST in 120 days, while hardly 100 days time is left in the current fiscal.
Waiting for nod
On the RST for 2022-23, ARR for which has been filed three weeks back, the official stated that they have completed their home work and prepared tariffs proposing “some increase to bring down the gap between actual cost of supply and aggregate revenue realisation in spite of sizeable subsidy allocation by the government” and awaiting clearance at the Chief Minister’s level.
