JERC’s 6.83 per cent hike lands on September 1, yet KPDCL still loses 33.54 per cent of every unit it buys. The paying consumer is being charged for the unbilled — and the 200 free units of 2024 appear nowhere on the tariff sheet.
Order No. 06 of 2026, issued by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission on August 20, raises retail tariff across Jammu and Kashmir by an average 6.83 per cent, applicable from September 1 to March 31, 2027. JPDCL and KPDCL had petitioned for 5 per cent. The regulator handed them more than they asked for.
Metered domestic consumers will now pay Rs 2.45 per unit up to 200 units, Rs 4.20 for 201-400 units and Rs 4.60 beyond that, against Rs 2.30, Rs 4 and Rs 4.35 earlier. The fixed charge climbs 25 per cent to Rs 10 per kW per month — a levy collected before a single bulb is switched on.
The stated reason is arithmetic. The Annual Revenue Requirement of the two discoms for 2026-27 is Rs 10,275.72 crore. Revenue at old rates stood at Rs 7,352.87 crore. The gap: Rs 2,922.85 crore. The hike recovers Rs 502.07 crore of it. The remaining Rs 2,420.78 crore comes as government grant-in-aid.
Now the part the order does not headline. In 2024-25, KPDCL’s aggregate technical and commercial losses stood at 33.54 per cent and JPDCL’s at 27.45 per cent. JERC’s own approved distribution loss trajectory for 2026-27 is 19 per cent for KPDCL and 15 per cent for JPDCL. Utilities in Gujarat, Kerala, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh run between roughly 4 and 13 per cent. One unit in three pushed into the Kashmir network earns nothing. Close that gap alone and the shortfall largely dissolves without touching a single slab.
JERC said this itself in November 2023: distribution loss is a controllable parameter, and inefficiency cannot be passed on to consumers. Three years later the inefficiency persists, and the consumer pays for it anyway — this time through a surcharge on his own honesty.
Then there is the promise. Page 13 of the National Conference’s 44-page manifesto, released on August 19, 2024, pledged 200 free units to households. By March 25, 2025, the Chief Minister had narrowed it on the Assembly floor to Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, routed through the PM Surya Ghar scheme. Twenty-two months into government, the number of households actually receiving those units has never been tabled. The tariff, meanwhile, arrives on schedule.
Three things are owed before the next petition. Publish feeder-wise loss and collection data every month. Finish metering the pockets that carry the loss instead of billing them flat. Tie discom management performance, and its pay, to loss reduction rather than tariff revision.
A regulator that raises rates faster than it enforces its own loss targets is not closing a deficit. It is financing one.
