PANAJI
A nearly 6 per cent spike of power bills looms over Goa's consumers across categories, including domestic, as early as from the current financial year if Goa Electricity department's (GED) proposal for tariff hike in three consecutive years -- 2025–26, 2026-27 and 2027-28 -- contained in its petition is accepted by the Joint Electricity Regularity Commission (JERC).
The proposal, part of GED's petition under the Multi-Year Tariff (MYT) framework, has already been submitted to the JERC and the regulatory body has fixed the public hearing for May 9.
The petition proposes a 5.95% overall hike in tariffs for the current financial year (2025-26) and a further 5.64% hike in tariffs for 2026–27.
Another 4.88% tariff hike is proposed for FY 2027–28 while there will be no further increases in 2028–29 and 2029–30 as per the petition which seeks the JERC's approval for the Department's five-year business plan for the five consecutive financial years from the current year up until March 31, 2030.
A second petition filed simultaneously by GED before the JERC also seeks the "true-up" of FY 2023–24 and for tariff determination.
The tariff hike proposal of the GED documents an increase in both fixed charges as well as the charges for per consumed unit. While the fixed charges are being proposed to be increased by 60 paise per Kilowatt of the consumer's total load, the energy charges are proposed to be hiked by between six paise to 35 paise per unit of consumed energy based on the consumption slabs.
Despite taking these proposed tariff hikes into account the GED's 'business plan' projects that the department will face a 'revenue gap' (losses) of Rs 408.76 crore in the current financial year on realising revenues of approximately Rs 3,081.97 crore and incurring an expenditure of Rs 3,490.73 crore.
This revenue gap of Rs 408.76, as has been the case each year over the last several years, is subsidized by the State government through provisions made in the State's annual budget and voted by the Goa legislative assembly.
Interestingly, the proposal to seek the regulatory body's nod for a power tariff hike, a politically volatile issue which can impact public sentiment, comes two years ahead of the next general assembly elections in Goa due in the normal course in February-March of 2027. The petition also includes a tariff hike in the election year.
