City gets a power shocker

Ramkrishan Upadhyay 

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, April 29 

City residents will have to pay more for the electricity, as the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has approved the hike in rates of electricity for 2016. The new rates will be effective from April 2016. 

Sparing the domestic consumers from a major hike, the enhancement has been made for the commercial and industrial consumers. While the rates have been enhanced up to 20 per cent for the industrialists, the domestic consumers have been burdened up to 10 to 12 per cent. 

The JERC has approved the hike after rejecting the proposal for the last three years. This time also, the JERC has not accepted the complete proposal of the department which proposed a hike up to 30 per cent. Sources said the Administration had proposed the hike in power tariff in all categories including non-residential areas, medium and small industries among others. 

The JERC has also rejected putting the burden of around of Rs 280 crore on consumers as the department failed to recover the loss from them as no hike was allowed in the last three years.