MUMBAI: The government has ruled out the possibility of a central package for debt-ridden staterun power distribution companies, and has insisted that it's time that they get their act together. The combined debt of all distribution companies was around Rs 2 lakh crore as on March last year, and despite most discoms raising tariff, they haven't really managed to cut losses significantly. They are, in fact, depending on loans for even taking care of operational expenses.
In the past, the central government had introduced 'restructuring packages' for discoms — the most recent being 2013 — but it hadn't been able to eliminate the problem. "There will be no package for discoms. What they need to do is set efficiency right, eliminate corruption in the system, reduce losses, cut transmission and distribution losses. I need to handhold them and put on my investment banking hat to help them sort things out," minister of power, coal and renewable energy Piyush Goyal told ET.
The minister added that the 'onesize-fits-all' principle doesn't work here. "We have started dialogue with state governments last year. The central government, state governments and outside experts are working together for a 24x7 electricity plan by 2019 for each state," he said.
No state had signed new power purchase agreements since 2013, and many continue to opt for load shedding rather than buy power, forcing the industry and commercial outfits to depend on expensive power from diesel generator sets, providing power at upwards of Rs 20 a unit.
We will eliminate consumption of electricity through diesel generator sets. This requires a lot of distribution capacity augmentation and improving transmission network. We are also looking at changing the existing transmission lines in parts to double capacity," Goyal said.
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