From 2019, “gratuitous” load-shedding by State power distribution companies (discom) will attract penalties, Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister R.K. Singh said on Thursday, adding that he had asked discoms to reduce their losses to below 15% by then.
Mr. Singh said that 24x7 power is a fundamental right of every citizen of the country and that all States would have to ensure it by March 2019.
“The States have arrived at consensus-based roadmap to bring down losses in State utilities/DISCOMS to below 15% by then and any gratuitous load shedding by them after that deadline would attract penalties,” Mr. Singh said, following a conference with power and energy state ministers. “There can be no justification to pass on the burden of our inefficiency to the consumer and this shall not be allowed post March 2019. It is for the power utilities to devise strategy to reduce their losses, the consumer must not be burdened with high power tariffs irrationally.”
40 million new consumers by next year
“We are about to add 40 million new consumers by December 2018 and expected economic growth of 8 to 9% in the next 5 years, power demand would increase manifold,” Mr. Singh said during the inaugural session of the conference. “Further, electricity will edge out other forms of energy in the coming future as it is more efficient and easy to transport. Electricity will take place of fossil fuels for mobility, cooking etc. and will decrease the imports of petroleum products.”
In addition, renewable energy would replace fossil fuels in the near future as and when storage systems become viable, he added.
“It has been observed that some States are not able to bill the consumers effectively and are losing about 50% of the expected recoveries,” Mr. Singh said. “Where the consumers are billed properly, the recovery is around 95%.”
The Minister proposed a number of reforms to reduce losses in the power sector, including mandatory installation of prepaid meters for small consumers and smart meters for large ones.
“This will be a pro-poor step as it will give the poor consumers flexibility to recharge that prepaid meters online through mobile phones, as and when they want, with a small amount at any given point of time,” he said. “This would also do away with the human element in meter reading, billing and recovery of the amount from consumer and hence the corruption involved at the lowest level.”
He said that Manipur had been able to reduce its losses by more than 50% by installing prepaid meters in its urban areas.
“If losses continue, no matter how much funds are injected into the power utilities, the NPAs (non-performing assets) would start building up again and the discoms would ultimately become unviable in the near future,” the Minister added. “This is an unacceptable situation and we have to make the losses a thing of the past”.
