Price hike: Get ready for more shocks

The coming days will see the people in the state wilting not only under the increasing temperature, but also rise in the prices of milk, power and fares of buses, taxies and autorickshaws.

As the Cabinet is set to give its nod for bus fare hike, the Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Milma) has decided to increase milk price by Rs 5 per litre from Sunday. The decision was taken by the director board meeting held in Kalpetta on Monday.

Milma chairman P T Gopala Kurup told Express that the price hike will be officially declared on Thursday.

The farmers had demanded an increase of Rs 5-7 per litre of milk, citing that the cost of milk production per litre has reached Rs 32, but the returns for them by selling milk to Ksheera Sanghams were limited to Rs 20 per litre.

The price of Milma cattle feed would also be increased by Rs 200-225 per bag.

Meanwhile, the KSEB told the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) that if power restrictions are not imposed immediately and the power situation remains the same, the tariff will have to be increased by Rs 2.10 per unit.

Kerala will be forced to go the way of other southern states if  power restrictions are not imposed immediately, the KSEB told a public hearing called on its petition to impose power restrictions. The KSEB proposal is to restrict supply to all HT/EHT and LT consumers to 75 per cent at normal tariff.

For domestic consumers, 200 units will be the monthly ceiling at which normal rates will be charged. Excess consumption should be charged at Rs 11 per unit, KSEB member (finance) S Venugopal told the commission.

The KSEB pointed out that Andhra Pradesh had imposed five to six hours of loadshedding, three days of weekly power holiday and 40 per cent power cuts. Tamil Nadu had in place three-hour loadshedding and 40 per cent power cut. Karnataka has one-hour continuous loadshedding in the evening.

Without restrictions, the KSEB would have to purchase 923 million units between October 2012 and March 2013 at a cost of Rs 3,082.03 crore.