Mumbai: BEST, Adani Electricity and Tata Power have put forth their power tariff proposals for residential consumers in Mumbai for the five years beginning 2025-26.
The tariff proposals will first be debated at the state’s power regulator, the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), before they are finalised for consumers in different consumption categories. While BEST has 10.8 lakh consumers in the city, Adani has 31.5 lakh in the suburbs, and Tata 7.5 lakh spread across the city.
Initially, Adani has proposed a reduction in tariff for the first year of the five-year plan by a minimum of 8% to a maximum of 19%, and then in the other four financial years till 2029-30, the proposed minimum year-on-year hike is in the range of 2% to 20%.
In the case of BEST, which supplies power to most of south Mumbai, the tariff rise is marginal, from 5 paise to 30 paise per unit. However, BEST’s tariff is already on the higher side for high-usage residential consumers (300 to 500 and above categories), almost equal to that of Tata Power.
In the case of Tata Power, the power tariffs will fall marginally for all categories of consumers year-on-year. However, the fifth year of the tariff regime will see a substantial cumulative decline in tariff rates by a minimum of 85 paise to Rs 1.27 per unit for low power consumers to Rs 1.50 per unit to Rs 1.80 per unit for high power consuming categories, as suggested by the year-on-year marginal fall in tariff rates as proposed in the schedule. However, every year, Tata Power will increase Rs 10 on fixed charges to eventually rise Rs 50 in the fifth year for all categories of consumers. Tata Power in a statement said for the residential sector, the tariff proposal envisages a reduction from 7.4% to 14 %. “Tata Power distribution has continued the trend of maintaining the lowest tariff for 0-100 KWh per month category for residential category in the state over the last many years. In addition, it has also proposed measures to enable our country to shift towards green energy consumption.”