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By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff reporter
Dingras, Ilocos Norte—Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative (INEC)
Board of Director (BOD) president Reynaldo Lazo said power charges will
continue to rise due to generation charges and the effect of the law of supply
and demand.
INEC records show an increase
of about .0813 centavos increase per kilowatt hour for residential consumers
for April. The specific rates are P9.3925 for March and P9.4738 for April.
A 0.060 centavo increase was
also implemented from February to March.
Small and large commercial
and industrial consumers, irrigation, public building and street lights rates also
went up for the month of April.
The industrial and large
commercial had the highest increases so far for the month of April with 0.0993
centavo.
Mr. Lazo hopes that the
increase will not continue next month provided that the power generation companies
will not experience problems on electricity to be generated knowing that several
dams are now on their water critical level conditions.
Relative to this, Mr. Lazo
appealed to all Ilocos Norte consumers to save electricity by turning off
appliances that are not being used.
He said that the consumers
must also consider that the rate increase is not only the reason why they have
high power bills but also the way they use electricity this summer season.
Redistricting eyed
Meanwhile, Mr. Lazo said that they are presently studying the
possible redistricting of INEC due to the unequal number of member-consumers
per district and as recommended by the National Electrification Administration
(NEA).
Of the 11 INEC districts,
records show that they have unequal number of member-consumers wherein the
board of director who has the most number is having a hard time coping with the
delivery of services.
Mr. Lazo cited his district
as an example; the Laoag North of the River district has the most number of
member-consumers as it spans 55 barangays compared to the other districts.
Ideally, the INEC board
president said that every district must have at least 12,000-14,000 member-consumers;
his district has more than 20,000 consumers or almost double the ideal number.
This condition gives the
possibility of dividing the North of the River district into two and then adding
the South of the River district to give Laoag two districts.
The South of the River portion
of Laoag is presently combined with the town of San Nicolas, and if this pushes
through, the San Nicolas portion of the district could be combined with the
nearest town either Paoay or Sarrat or even as part of Batac City.
However, Mr. Lazo stressed
that this is just a proposal for now.
Records also show that the Paoay-Currimao
district has the least number of member-consumers.
INEC will also study the
possibility of dividing the towns of Pagudpud, Bangui, Burgos, Adams and
Dumalneg which are all lumped into one district due to the increasing number of
consumers.
Based on NEA rules, Mr. Lazo
said INEC could have 15 districts as maximum or another option would be for the
province to have two electric cooperatives for the first and second districts.
All these proposals, Mr. Lazo
said will still need thorough study by the board, management with the participation
of member-consumers.
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