Hyderabad: Despite the State Electricity Regulatory Commission allowing a Rs 1,527-crore power tariff hike in the current financial year, power distribution companies are left with over Rs 4,000 crore in debts, which might be passed on to the consumers later in the year or in the next fiscal.
The government has decided to join the Ujwal Discoms Assurance Yojana as part of which the state will take over 75 per cent of the debts of discoms.
The Centre has, however, rejected a request from the government to include Rs 4,000 crore debts in UDAY; only loans obtained by the discoms are included and restructured in the scheme.
As the Rs 4,000 crore spent by the discoms to purchase power was not in the form of loans, the Centre said it could not include it in UDAY. Also, the cut-off date for inclusion of discoms’ debts under UDAY was September 2015.
Experts say the government should reimburse the discoms as they had spent the money to purchase power at over Rs 6 per unit from private producers to overcome power shortage and to implement the “no power cuts” assurance that the government had been giving.
“We have been bringing this issue to the notice of even the Electricity Regulatory Commission, that discoms had purchased power at higher cost from private producers without seeking approval. The commission should not allow discoms to pass this burden on to the consumers,” said Mr M. Venugopal Rao of the Centre for Power Development.
The discoms should also come out with a White Paper on the money that they have spent on purchase of power from private producers.
“The government should arrange to reimburse or provide subsidy of the entire Rs 4,000 crore” another expert opined.
Officials said it was too early to comment as a tripartite agreement between the state, discoms and the Union power ministry was still to be signed on joining the UDAY.
“Clarity will come on several financial aspects including the percentage of debts of discoms to be taken over by the state government,” an official said.
