Haryana announces Rs10,000 rebate on fixed power charge for industries

The relief package was announced in view of the economic slowdown brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak and after the Haryana government received numerous representations from industry owners and their associations recently.

The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) issued a notification on Wednesday announcing flat rebate of ₹10,000 in fixed electricity charges for industrial consumers for the months of March and April. However, industry owners’ association said this was too little to make any difference and that they had demanded complete waiver of the fixed charges from March to May.

The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) issued a notification on Wednesday announcing flat rebate of ₹10,000 in fixed electricity charges for industrial consumers for the months of March and April. (Bloomberg)

The relief package was announced in view of the economic slowdown brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak and after the Haryana government received numerous representations from industry owners and their associations recently.

“After receiving representations from industry owners it has been decided by the Haryana government (through the Haryana electricity regulatory commission) that the fixed charges of consumers having load 20 KW and above for the month of March and April shall be waived off subject to a ceiling of ₹10,000 per month provided the monthly consumption of the consumer is 50% or less,” the notification said.

Fixed charge is an additional, but major component of the electricity bill that the department, such as Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), calculates at ₹170 per kilo watt in addition to the electricity consumption.

A consumer having, for instance, 100 KW sanctioned load currently pays ₹17,700 as fixed charge to government per month. After rebate, s/he will have to pay ₹7,700.

“Most of the industry owners pay ₹2 lakh to ₹3 lakh fixed charge every month in addition to electricity consumption. For us, ₹10,000 relaxation is negligible. We are disappointed. Rajasthan and UP governments have waived off fixed charges. We gave representation for complete waiver of fixed charges for three months, March to May. We will write to the government in this regard,” Manmohan Gaind, general secretary of Manesar Industrial Welfare Association, said.

“We were hoping the government would waive off fixed charges completely for three months since we are witnessing economy slowdown also – our industries are shut and we are in loss, our businesses have been halted by virus outbreak,” said Manoj Jain, joint secretary of Gurgaon Industrial Association.

HELP FOR SMALL-SCALE INDUSTRIES

The industries are big electricity consumers of the DHBVN and their connections range from 20KW to 1000KW and above.

The DHBVN maintained the ₹10,000 rebate was good relief for thousands of small-scale industries.

“This rebate will bring relief to industries having 50 KW load or less as their average monthly fixed charges are normally less than ₹10,000 and they will have to pay no amount in the fixed charge category,” said KC Aggarwal, DHBVN chief engineer Gurugram.