Expect tarrif to rise by 40-50 paise/unit: CESC

CESC reported fourth quarter FY11 profit after tax of Rs 110 crore, a 10% growth as compared to Rs 100 crore in same quarter the previous year. Net sales grew  to Rs 898 crore from Rs 756 crore (Y-o-Y).

Sanjiv Goenka, Vice Chairman, CESC speaking to CNBC-TV18, spoke about the quarterly performance of the company. He said the generation has been higher than last year and the demand was higher by 7% than last year. "We expect tariffs to go up because there is a huge pressure on cost. So definitely tariffs will go up. We are looking for somewhere between 40-50 paise a unit increase," he added. Below is the verbatim transcript of his interview with of CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video. Q:  What kind of generation figures you had in Q4? Because the fear is that it was much lower this time around both in terms of issues that you faced and lesser demand as well. A: The generation was higher. It was about 17% higher than last year. As far as demand is concerned, that was up by 7% over last year. As far as PAT is concerned, it is upped by 12% over the same period last year. So, we have had a pretty robust growth over the same period last year. If you take the year as a whole, it has again been a pretty smart increase. Our turnover was Rs 3,300 crore, which is at Rs 4,015 crore this year. Q: In terms of a sequential performance though, how have generations looked on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis not year-on-year (YoY)? A: Generation has also looked better. 17% would pretty much be reflective. At some quarters, it is 15%, some quarters it is 18%. But, overall even this quarter generation has been better. Q: What kind of plant load factors were you all working at in Q4? How much do you think that will get scale up to in the current quarter? A: Q4 is always a low PLF quarter because the plants are taken down for maintenance. April-June is always the highest quarter in terms of PLF. This is because that is when the demand peaks but let us not forget that last year we had a new plant of 250 megawatt, which got into stream at Baj Baj. That has added significantly to the higher generation numbers. Q: Where is that you see realizations holding at for the rest of this financial year because that has been the prickly part for your industry on merchant rates? A: We don