Southern States
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Andhra Pradesh
Power transmission loss reduction figures `incorrect'
By Our Special Correspondent
HYDERABAD, DEC. 11 All the figures provided by different state electricity boards (SEBs) about reduction in transmission and distribution (TD) losses are ``doctored and cooked up'', according to Mr D. S. Hanumantha Rao, former member of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission.
This is so because, none of them is able to measure to the full extent the electricity being supplied to different categories of consumers.
The TD reductions, if any, can be gauged only if metering is done cent per cent, he said, while delivering the key-note address at a meeting on ``Tariff Structure and Analysis'' organised by Engineering Staff College of India (ESCI) in its premises at Gatchi Bowli, near here, on Tuesday.
Under the circumstances, he said, the SEBs might be giving some figure or other regarding TD losses to suit their interests-budgets and balance-sheets.
The regulatory commissions, which were instituted in different States under the reforms, could not do anything regarding this as, they had ``just come to the surface''. According to the constantly projected figures, the TD losses came down to 23 per cent in Orissa, to 14 per cent in Tamil Nadu and to 18 per cent in Andhra Pradesh. They were not correct, he contended.
Mr Rao, advisor to TNSEB and to many independent power projects (IPPs), stated that if the country's gross domestic product (GDP) was to grow by 7 to 9 per cent as envisioned by the Union Government, the electricity sector would have to grow by 10 per cent.
The nation, as a whole, suffered a peak-period energy shortage of 40 per cent with the non- realisation of this growth and with its inability to put 30 per cent energy in reserve. All this implied that a capacity addition of 10,000 MW would have to be made yearly.
To ensure this much addition, the sector should be freed from the present ills, he said, stressing the need for cutting down subsidies, which discriminated one section from the other, to the minimum.
In Tamil Nadu, Rs 7,000 crores was being spent by different departments on subsidies yearly, and electricity (8,200 million units annually working out to 29 per cent of total supply) was given to agricutlure ``almost free of cost'' while the subsidy for domestic sector was 16 per cent.
This was discriminatory against other categories of consumers, he said, adding that regulatory commissions were doing good by questioning ``the public interest'' projected by SEBs while allowing subsidies.
Mr. Hanumantha Rao appeared to dismiss the income figures also given by the SEBs as untrue, stating that returns on the investment was minus 134 per cent in Andhra pradesh, minus 27 per cent in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and minus 4 per cent in Haryana.
Mr D. Prabhakara Rao, Director (Finance), AP Transco, who was to give the key-note address, was absent. Mr S. V. Rama Murthy, ASCI's Deputy Director, and Mr C. S. Sastry and Mr Ch. Ramakrishnudu, both faculty members, spoke.
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