Chennai: Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (TNPDCL) has come up with an elaborate standard operating procedure (SOP) to enable 2 per unit subsidy to tea shops, eateries, cloud kitchens, restaurants and hotels following restricted availability of commercial cylinders due to the West Asia crisis.In the detailed circular from corporation’s finance branch all superintendent engineers of the power distribution circles and assistant executive engineers have been instructed to visit the high-tension (HT) commercial services to ensure connected load is entirely used for food courts, restaurants, hotels, canteen. HT consumers in non-commercial category such as IT parks having canteens and food courts will be eligible to avail the subsidy only if a separate meter is maintained for such loads, the circular said. For low-tension consumers, the sub categorisation of commercial services into tea shops, restaurants, small hotels, big hotels, sweets and bakery shops, and others have been done in the billing software and the assessors have been mandated to classify the services while taking the meter readings in relevant categories. High-tension consumers pay consumption charges of 9.40 per unit, whereas low-tension consumers pay 6.45 to 10.45 per unit depending upon their consumption. On March 14, the state govt announced that the electricity consumers, who move electric and induction stover, to tide over shortage of commercial LPG cylinders will be subsidised for excess power consumption. The state govt will now pay 2 per unit to TNPDCL for excess power, while consumers will pay the remaining charges. The circular said the excess consumption will be calculated by comparing the latest consumption with the last year’s corresponding data. “It is an emergency measure. TNPDCL will get the subsidy ratified by TNERC later,” an official said.
