Some discoms to turnaround next year due to UDAY scheme: Govt
Distribution continues to be an area of serious concern. However, with the implementation of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY), aimed at bringing ailing power distribution companies (discoms) to a state of operational efficiency, some discoms are expected to turnaround in one year while others will take more time. At a video presentation at an event organised by the Indo American Chamber of Commerce, Union power secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari said since the launch of UDAY in November last year, the debt service liability of discoms has come down mainly due to the reduction in the losses and also dip in the generation cost.
The Centre has already extended the deadline for implementation of UDAY by a year to March 31, 2017. About 15 states have already joined it.
“Power distribution continues to be the main concern. Discoms’ capacity to buy, purchase and supply power 24×7 is still a question. Lot of focus is given on distribution sector so that the discoms turn around both financially and in their operational efficiency. They have to improve their operational efficiency, reduce their aggregate transmission and commercial (AT&C) losses, which are quite high,” Pujari said. However, during January, February and March this year, the cost of power procurement has come down leading to improvement in the performance of discoms.
He informed that the cost of generation of NTPC, which supplies 40% power, has come down by 39 paise per unit, which is a huge amount. In private sector too the cost of generation has reduced due to improved quality and increased quantity of coal.
Further, of the two lakh feeders comprising one lakh each in urban and rural areas, Pujari said 31,000 feeders have been put on national portal and discoms have been asked to look at individual feeder.
“Main emphasis in next six months is on working with discoms to improve energy efficiency. In generation sector, the focus is on increasing the energy efficiency through better quality of coal supply, better utilisation of coal, rationalisation of linkages and utilisation of coal by the generating companies in the most efficient way. As far as the transmission is concerned, the government is addressing issues faced by the ongoing project developers,” Pujari said.
