Paying Dearly for Power

Any organization that generates power must constantly monitor its costs. In Assam, those in charge of generating and distributing power ceased to care about such matters long ago. As a result we now have a situation where the negative economy of scale has begun to operate. The Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) is now obliged to supply power to its consumers by buying most of it because it had not planned for the growth of population and the increasing use of electricity for decades. It is therefore obliged to hike its power tariff with increasing frequency. This is nothing new. All it has to do is invent  new excuses from time to time for such extortiote tariff hikes. This time it is called Fuel and Power Purchase Price Adjustment (FPPPA) charge. Power consumers will now have to pay 59 paise per unit more because the APDCL is facing a crisis because of its debt of around Rs 265 crore. But how does it matter? The APDCL knows it can always count on the consumers to pay up.