Uday 2.0: Govt may impose stricter penalties on non-complying discoms under new scheme

With state-owned electricity discoms’ financial performance worsening again after a brief spell of improvement witnessed under the Uday scheme in FY16-FY18 period, the government may impose stringent penalties on the non-compliant among these entities in the form of denial of Central funds under a revamped scheme to finance electricity infrastructure upgrade. However, the new scheme and policy, likely to be announced in the coming Budget, may fall short of instituting tripartite agreement amongst the RBI, PFC-REC and state governments to ensure discoms clear their dues to generators in time.

“Discoms will have to work out a trajectory for loss reduction and funds under the (new) scheme would be released only if the trajectories are adhered to,” Union power minister RK Singh said on Monday. The scheme will subsume the existing Central government schemes for the electricity sector such as the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY).