Power Tariff Relief For Consumers in SPDCL Limits

What are you doing? Electricity consumers under AP Southern Power Distribution Company Ltd’s jurisdiction will not face any tariff hike in 2026-27 following the state government’s decision to bridge the revenue gap of power utilities.

APSPDCL chairman and managing director Shiva Shankar Lotheti said on Friday that the tariff order issued by the electricity regulatory commission has brought relief to domestic, agricultural and commercial consumers. The alliance government, led by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, decided to compensate for the revenue shortfall of distribution companies, enabling the regulator to maintain existing tariffs.

APSPDCL had projected a revenue shortfall of `8,238 crore for 2026-27. However, with the state government agreeing to cover it, APERC issued tariff orders without any increase. The CMD said this has benefited 53.84 lakh domestic consumers, 12.15 lakh agricultural users and free electricity continues for around 8 lakh SC/ST households, berbers and dhobi ghats.

Relief was provided to commercial consumers by reducing the tariff from 12.25 to 9.95 per unit. The increase in the load limit for looms from 10 hp to 20 hp is expected to benefit around 18,000 weavers.

Shivashankar said a special subcategory has been introduced for solar equipment units, while water purification and printing units have been shifted to the industrial category to reduce costs. Power for highway lighting has been moved to the utilities category and relief has been extended to emu and poultry farms through revised classifications and sub-meter provisions.

As per revenue impact details, 41,510 lt Category-II consumers using more than 500 units will see a total relief impact of ₹ 13.51 crore. Billboards 883 under LT categories will see a benefit of 0.619 crore. Event halls and auditoriums under LT categories (2,179 consumers) will get relief of ₹ 3.97 crore.

Green energy consumers under LT category (45 consumers) and starting power category (42 consumers) will see marginal benefits of `0.002 crore and `0.02 crore respectively. Among HT consumers, 128 event halls and auditoriums will get a benefit of ₹ 1,974 crore.

A larger relief of 11,816 crore will be extended to 381 HT initial power consumers, while 7 green power HT consumers will see a benefit of 1,175 crore.