Abstract

So This Is Bureaucracy!

This month marks the completion of the deal by which the Knoxville, Tennessee district receives cheap electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Little Tupelo, Mississippi, was the first town to have TVA current. The Knoxville district, with a population of about 125,000, will be the first large area so supplied. Altogether eleven contracts to supply current have already been made by the TVA with municipalities. Applications for contracts number more than 300, some of them from districts too far away to be served. The Knoxville deal is of first importance, both to the TVA and to the country as a whole. It establishes a precedent for federal power projects generally. The consumer receives current at rates not duplicated by any private utility. In Knoxville the reduction in the rates for a use of 240 kilowatt hours a month is 34.1 per cent. Even over the "promotional rates" offered by the private company when met with the threat of municipal competition, the saving to consumers is 16.4 per cent. The TVA rates in Knoxville include a 10 per cent surcharge which in ten years will pay off all the debt incurred in buying out the private company's facilities.