Despite massive investments AT&C remain high
The two power distribution companies (Discoms) of Telangana have fallen short of the targets set by the Ministry of Power under Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) in 7 out of 14 parameters, including reducing the technical and commercial losses and bridging the gap between cost of supply and revenue realised.
However, the Discoms could make the desired progress on six other indicators during the first nine months of the current fiscal. Against the target of bringing down the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses to 10.71% till December-end the two power utilities were able to reduce the losses only till 14.6%. The losses at the end of 2016-17 fiscal were at 15.36%.
Much is left to be desired in the Discoms’ performance on another key indicator of bridging the gap between average cost of supply (ACS) and aggregate revenue realised (ARR) as they were able to bring it down to ₹0.38 per unit against the target of ₹0.34 per unit, according to a recent report released by the Ministry of Power for the quarter ending December 31, 2017. The gap between the cost of supply and revenue realised was, however, very high at ₹0.81 per unit at the end of last financial year.
“The Discoms could not make much headway in terms of collecting outstanding receivables and payment of power charges to power producers within a specified 90 days period, though the two aspects are dynamic,” sources in Southern Discom admitted. The performance of the two power utilities has also been sluggish with respect to indicators such as smart metering, feeder segregation and rural feeder auditing.
Since the two Discoms have invested heavily, about ₹12,150 crore, during the last three years on strengthening the transmission and distribution network, improvement in some aspects such as AT&C were expected to be visible in the coming quarters, the sources hoped.
The Discoms have made good progress in the matter of bringing down the loss in the net income to ₹381.82 crore during the third quarter against the target of ₹1,212.4 crore. In meeting the renewable power purchase obligation (RPO), the Discoms have made almost double the targeted progress as they have increased the share of renewable power in the total consumption to 7.05% against the target of 3.75%.
Source: thehindu
