As on April 2020, the state discoms have accumulated pending bills to the tune of Rs 32,000 crore to gencos, as against a total of Rs 17,500 crore owed by them in March 2019, reflecting a severe stress in the sector.
Even as the Centre has announced a fresh Rs 90,000-crore package by PFC-REC to the state-run power distribution companies, Uttar Pradesh’s outstanding dues to electricity generating companies (gencos) have kept on piling.
As on April 2020, the state discoms have accumulated pending bills to the tune of Rs 32,000 crore to gencos, as against a total of Rs 17,500 crore owed by them in March 2019, reflecting a severe stress in the sector.
Of the Rs 32,000 crore, state generating companies’ dues stand at Rs 9,859 crore, those of IPPs stand at Rs 9,700 crore and Central generating companies at Rs 6,500 crore. The central transmission owes the discoms Rs 1,200 crore while the state transmission owes Rs 3,700 crore. Apart from this, the renewable energy producers have pending bills of Rs 1,050 crore.
The discoms’ over-dues —bills that remained unpaid for more than 60 days — have been rising relentlessly. According to sources, among the IPPS, Lalitpur Power Generating Co has the maximum dues, worth Rs 3,000 crore, followed by NTPC, at Rs 2,900 crore.
The spurt in overdues in April is being seen as a direct outcome of the lockdown imposed due to Covid-19 outbreak, as it has adversely impacted the electricity demand and the revenues and cash collections for the discoms.
“The lockdown has resulted in a massive dip in power demand. Since the maximum demand fall has come from industrial and commercial establishment, which pay higher tariffs, the blow has been very hard. To add to that is the fact that collections from power sold has not been more than 10-20% as it has been difficult to continue meter reading exercises and collect payments from consumers amid the country-wide lockdown. These factors have aggravated the payment delays to generation companies,” said an official.
At the end of March 2020, overall discoms dues to power producers across India stood at a staggering Rs 90,577 crore, up 41% from a year earlier. About 88% of these (Rs 79,829 crore) were overdues.
Source: financialexpress
