The Ministry of Power is working on changes to contain the cost of power purchase across the country.
“The Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) has brought the focus of Power Distribution Companies (Discoms) back on the power purchase costs, which are around 80 per cent of their annual costs. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, the inflationary pressures of increased power costs have been largely contained due to the coal reforms, generation efficiency improvements, as well as adherence to merit order dispatches,” a Power Ministry official said.
“Against an annual increase of 7.7 per cent in power purchase costs in the pre-UDAY period of 2015-16, in 2016-17, the cost increase was only 1 per cent. In 2017-18, the costs reduced by 0.7 per cent absorbing the inflation. Since these were one-time measures, power purchase costs have now increased by 5 per cent in the first nine months of 2018-19.
