Hyderabad: The state government has diverted Rs 1,400 crore collected through Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana bonds.
After joining the Central government’s UDAY scheme, the state government had taken over the Rs 9,000 crore loan burden of Discoms and issued UDAY bonds. The TS government received Rs 9,000 crore by sale of these bonds.
The idea was that the funds generated would be released to the Discoms which in turn would clear the loans.
However, the state government released Rs 7,577 crore to the Discoms and the remaining amount was diverted to other purposes.
TSTransco has written to the state government requesting release of the balance Rs 1,423 crore collected under Uday bonds.
Before the state government joined UDAY, the two Discoms of the state had a debt burden of Rs 11,897 crore. The two Discoms were paying Rs 890 crore per year as interest.
UDAY was designed to relieve the financial burden of Discoms by way of the state governments taking over 75 per cent of the debt burden. For this, the state government issued bonds worth Rs 9,000 crore which were auctioned by the RBI.
The UDAY scheme envisages a comprehensive turnaround of Discoms through improvement in operational efficiencies, reduction in cost of power, reduction interest rates and by attaining financial discipline. Besides coming out of the debt burden, the Discoms will also be able to raise funds at competitive rates.
