The Centre announced a package of Rs 120,000 crore through PFC and REC in 2020 under Uday, as also letters of credit (LCs) for payment guarantees, to bring down the amount outstanding from discoms to gencos. It is necessary to evaluate performance on these counts from PRAAPTI data. PRAAPTI data, provided by the discom/state government for central gencos, IPPs , and RE generators, is missing data on the outstanding owed to state gencos. So, for calculating gross outstanding to gencos, at least 25-30 % will have to be added to the PRAAPTI figures. The accompanying graphic shows the outstanding at the beginning and end of the month in 2021.
Few things become quite clear. Approximately Rs 17,000 crore in the month of March. And Rs 8,000 crore in September must have been released. So, only during these two months, the amount outstanding dipped. In all the remaining months, the outstanding amount only goes up—because the discom is unable to pay the power-purchase costs. This is compounded by the late-payment surcharge that keeps on mounting.
