The Puducherry Electricity Department (PED) is launching a drive against defaulters to bridge the gap between its power purchase outgo and collection revenue.
The decision to launch an intensive drive followed a meeting with officials convened by Chief Secretary Manoj Parida to take stock of the financial situation of the PED, especially the arrears in revenue collection that now stand at about Rs. 200 crore.
In the six month period between April and September, the PED had spent about Rs. 700 crore for procurement of power and payment of arrears, whereas its collection for the same period languished at Rs. 500 crore across various consumer categories.
The collection was way short of the revenue target for the period of about Rs. 650 crore.
“We have directed officials to improve collection efficiency by at least 10 to 15 per cent before our next review,” Mr. Parida said.
Some of the biggest defaulters include Government departments and local bodies. The list of defaulters for August 2015 identifies 27 private enterprises and 18 Government units with the combined arrears totalling about Rs. 42 crore.
“In actual terms, the outstanding amount would be slightly lower as commercial category users resort to staggered payments,” said K. Mathivanan, Superintending Engineer, PED.
Some of the other measures to tone up the efficiency of the PED include expediting the migration to digital meters for billing accuracy for units consumed instead of the practice of calculating average consumption, further reduction of the Transmission and Distribution Loss from current levels of about 13 per cent to about 10 per cent, and switching over the LEDs for street lighting.
PED serves a consumer base of around 4.16 lakh which is predominantly domestic users (almost 75 per cent), followed by public lighting and commercial categories. The cumulative power demand for the UT is in the 350 MW to 370 MW range which is largely met by procurements from central generating stations such as the NTPC unit in Ramagundam, drawals from electricity boards of neighbouring States and the Neyveli Lignite Corporation. The power from its sole generating unit, the 32.5 MW combined cycle gas power plant in Karaikal, is used locally.
In recent years, the spike in power purchase costs triggered by increase in fuel costs for generating stations is also causing a strain on the resources of the PED.
In the last five years alone, there has been a 11.5 per cent increase in the per unit power purchase cost
According to the PED’s Business Plan for 2016-17 through to 2018-19 of the PED submitted to the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission, the department has been incurring losses over successive years due to under-recovery that has led to a widening expenditure-revenue gap.
It also aims to reduce transmission-distribution loss to 10 per cent
