Power tariff hiked by 26 pc in Delhi

Already battling high inflation, people in Delhi will have to shell out more for electricity from July 1 with the city's power regulator DERC Tuesday announcing a steep hike of around 26 percent in tariff for domestic consumers.
  
The tariff has been hiked by 24.15 per cent for domestic consumers while an additional eight per cent surcharge has been levied on the overall bill which would effectively take the increase to 26 per cent, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) Chairman P D Sudhakar said.
  
The average hike, including the commercial and industrial sector would be 20.87 per cent for all categories. The new rates would come into effect from July 1.
  
"We have decided to increase the tariff considering the difficult financial position of the power distribution companies," Sudhakar said announcing the hike. As per the new rates, a domestic consumer will be charged Rs 3.70 per unit for first 200 units of power instead of current Rs 3. Consumers having a monthly usage of upto 400 units will have to pay Rs 4.80 per unit of power.
  
Earlier, consumers having usages upto 400 unit were paying Rs 3 per unit for first 200 unit and then Rs 4.80 per unit was charged for consumption upto 400 units.
  
For consumption above 400 units, Rs 6.40 per unit will be charged instead of current Rs 5.70, Sudhakar said.
  
The monthly fixed charges for consumers having a sanctioned load of upto 2 kilowatts have been increased from Rs 30 to Rs 40 while consumers having sanctioned load between 2 kilowatts to 5 kilowatts will have to pay Rs 100 as fixed charges instead of current Rs 75.
  
The fixed charges for consumers having a sanctioned load of above five kilowatt will have to pay Rs 20 instead of current Rs 15.