Odishatv Bureau
Bhubaneswar: Terming the proposed power tariff hike by power distributing companies unfair,  the major industry body of the state the --Utkal Chamber Of Commerce & Industry  (UCCI) has appealed for alternative measures to compensate the high power purchase price. Taking a strong view against DISCOM proposals, UCCI has questioned why the consumers have to pay for the inefficiency of the power distributors.
 
 Ramesh Mohapatra, president of UCCI said, “Because of inefficiency of distributing companies, aggregated technical & commercial ( AT & C) loss was 36.84 per cent against 22.39 per cent as per power regulator Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission ( OERC) approval for the fiscal year 2012-13”. 
 
 Accusing OERC of being soft towards the distributors, which are not improving quality of supply, he even questioned the projected  AT & C loss. As electricity tariff was hiked in last three financial years --20% in 2010-11, 26% in 2011-12 and 11.8% in 2012-13--the industry body appealed OERC not to hike tariff again as proposed by DISCOMs. Instead, it urged that more efforts should be given to increase the share of hydro power to counter high charges of captive power producers supplying to GRIDCO, the sole source of power to distributing companies in the state.
 
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