At a time when the power supply position is getting grim due to shortage of coal against the demand and slapping of new conditions frequently by the Ministry of Power to ease the situation, the performance of two power distribution companies (discoms) of Telangana for the quarter ending March 2022 has left much to be desired.
The not-so-healthy indicators on some key aspects such as average cost of supply (ACS)-average revenue realised (ARR) gap, feeder segregation, renewable power purchase obligation, smart (prepaid) metering, aggregate technical and commercial losses and others come as eye openers to the discoms. It assumes significance in the backdrop of discoms’ submission to the electricity regulatory commission (ERC) on improving their internal efficiency, about ₹4,100 crore as in financial terms.
Assessment of the performance of the two Discoms done under Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) has put the ACS-ARR gap at ₹1.07 per unit and the AT&C losses at 12.02%. As a result, the loss of the Discoms’ for 2021-22 has been put at a whopping ₹5,816 crore in spite of ₹5,940 crore subsidy extended by the government in lieu of free power supply to agriculture sector and partial subsidy given to some other sections.
Continuation of under-performance by the discoms on some in key indicators is likely to put the two utilities under further stress as the MoP has recently stipulated the power generation companies (Gencos) to import coal for 10%-15% blending of it with indigenous coal to overcome the coal shortage with a facility to increase the tariff proportionately till the end of 2022-23 fiscal.
Officials say that blending of even 10% imported coal would have an additional burden of ₹5 crore per day on the state-run Telangana Genco units having an installed capacity of over 4,040 megawatt and contributing about 60 million units to 70 MU of energy demand every day.
The progress of installation of smart (prepaid) meters which has been proposed to bring down revenue (commercial) losses has been at snail’s pace so far with just 3% achievement as only 38,318 smart meters were installed till March-end against the target of 13,96,282. “We have issued instructions to our field engineers/staff to plug revenue losses by working towards 100% revenue realisation with measures such as stoppage of power supply in case of pending dues”, a Souther Discom executive said.
