State-run electricity distribution companies’ (discoms) ‘overdues’ — pending receivables of 45 days or more — to power producers stood at Rs 82,400 crore at the end of March 2021, up 10.3% from a year earlier.
Though the overdue amount is expectedly lower than the February figure of Rs 91,072 crore because the discoms clear large portions of dues in the last month of the fiscal, this time money paid by them in March (Rs 30,438 crore) was 72% higher than the value of invoices cleared in the same month in FY20, reflecting that utilisation of the PFC-REC loans under the Rs 1.25-lakh-crore liquidity infusion scheme announced by the Centre under the Atmanirbhar Bharat package to clear discom dues to electricity generators.
