A 6.83 per cent hike is arithmetic. The 200 free units, still unfunded and unexplained, are not.
From 1 September, power costs more in Jammu and Kashmir. JERC Order No. 06 of 2026, issued on 20 August, raises retail tariff for JPDCL and KPDCL by an average of 6.83 per cent, and holds until 31 March 2027. Metered domestic consumers pay Rs 2.45 a unit up to 200 units, Rs 4.20 from 201 to 400, and Rs 4.60 above that, against Rs 2.30, Rs 4 and Rs 4.35 earlier. The fixed charge rises from Rs 8 to Rs 10 per kW a month, a jump of 25 per cent that no one campaigned on. Time-of-Day billing begins for connections above 10 kW, with a 20 per cent peak surcharge for industry and commerce and a 20 per cent rebate in solar hours.
The arithmetic is not in dispute. The Commission cleared an annual revenue requirement of Rs 10,275.72 crore for the two distribution companies. Existing rates would have fetched Rs 7,352.87 crore. The shortfall is Rs 2,922.85 crore. Recovered through tariff alone, that meant a rise near 40 per cent, which JERC called a tariff shock. Government subsidy and grants of Rs 2,420.78 crore prevented it.
Two details deserve the attention they have not received. JPDCL and KPDCL asked for 5 per cent. The regulator gave 1.83 percentage points more, which means the utilities’ own estimate of what they needed was rejected as too low. And a gap survives even after the subsidy. This order does not balance the sector. It buys one financial year.
The political wound is self-inflicted. The National Conference fought the election on 200 free units. The Chief Minister said in January there would be no general increase. Both statements are now awkward, and neither had to be made. A government that had explained the true cost of a unit in October 2024 would today be defending a hard decision instead of a reversal.
There is a case for this order, and the government is not making it. JERC held distribution loss targets at 15 per cent for JPDCL and 19 per cent for KPDCL, and said the licensees’ inefficiencies must not travel to the consumer’s bill. That is the regulator drawing a line the executive has avoided for two decades. The subsidy is close to a quarter of what the sector needs, drawn from a budget that also builds schools and staffs hospitals. Money spent covering leakage is money not spent on meters, feeders and transmission that would bring the leakage down.
The opposition has the easier task and is performing it badly. Protest against a rise in bills is legitimate. But no party in the Assembly has named the slabs it would protect, the sum it would sanction, or the head from which that sum would come. Anger without an alternative budget is a press release, not a policy.
Statehood belongs in this argument, though not where it has been placed. Shared authority with the Lieutenant Governor blurs who answers for what, and restoration would fix the address for blame and credit alike. But the tariff was set by an independent regulator on petitions filed by utilities this government runs. Metering, billing, collection and loss reduction are files on a minister’s desk. Statehood would clarify accountability. It will not recover a single unit of stolen power.
What is owed now is a plain sentence. Publish the annual cost of 200 free units, the head it will be charged to, and the date it starts. If it cannot start, say so before the September bills land. Households can absorb Rs 2.45 a unit. They cannot absorb being told there would be no hike and then being handed one with no accounting for the difference.
The bill arrives Monday. So does the question of who explains it.
