The Hindu : 'Per capita power consumption in State up'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 11, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

'Per capita power consumption in State up'

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Nov. 10. The effective implementation of reforms combined with a series of steps had resulted in substantial enhancement of annual per capita consumption from 364 KWH in 1994-95 to 505 KWH in 2001-02, Rachel Chatterjee, Chairperson and Managing Director, AP TRANSCO, said here on Sunday.

Interacting with a group of consumers from Telangana, she said the present per capita consumption in the State was far higher than that of many other States like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Under the reforms, a number of steps were taken like strengthening of transmission and distribution network, addition in generation capacity, massive drive to reduce losses, improvement in reliable power supply and huge investment of Rs. 9,200 crores. The reforms had come in for praise not only by the Prime Minister, A. B. Vajpayee, but CRISIL, the World Bank, the European Trade Commission, the Ahluwalia Committee of the Central Government and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

She said the State was the third largest power utility in the country with a 1.4 crore strong consumer base. It has successfully implemented consumer-friendly schemes like spot billing, passbooks and consumer care centres. With the State Government planning to invest Rs. 7,200 crores in the next five years, the AP TRANSCO was confident of providing quality power supply. The total installed capacity by the end of September this year was 9,857 MW, against 6111 MW during 1994-95.

The strengthening of Transmission and Distribution (T & D) system had enabled the power utilities to handle a record supply of 152 to 160 million units per day. A concerted effort had resulted in reduction of T & D losses from 38 per cent in 1999 to 29.6 per cent by the end of 2001-02. This reduction of 8.4 per cent in T & D losses helped the AP TRANSCO in saving Rs. 672 crores. Encouraged it is now contemplating bringing down the losses to 25 per cent in the year 2002-03. The energy metered sales per employee was the highest in the country.

The AP TRANSCO has achieved this progress despite a number of impediments like steep fall in hydel generation and hike in agriculture demand owing to severe drought.

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