Rs 13,421 crore sanctioned by Centre for power sector in AP for five years
VIJAYAWADA: The central government has sanctioned Rs 13,421 crore over a period of five years from fiscal 2021-22 to 2025-26 under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) for the power sector in Andhra Pradesh.
RDSS aims to bring about financial discipline in the distribution sector and strengthen the distribution infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted power supply to consumers.
At all-India level, the total outlay was Rs 3,03,758 crore and the Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) was Rs 97,631 crore over a period of five years from FY 2021-22.
The information was provided in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday by Union power minister RK Singh, while replying to a question raised by Parimal Nathwani.
The minister said about 19.79 crore prepaid consumer smart meters are planned to be deployed across states, of which 56.09 lakh smart meters would be installed in Andhra Pradesh. A total of 42.06 lakh smart meters will be installed in the first phase in AP and 14.02 lakh more meters in the second phase.
Nathwani wanted to know about the schemes launched by the power ministry since 2018 till date along with details of the targets set and achievements made under each of the said schemes, along with the details of the funds allocated and utilised for implementation of various schemes.
According to the minister, the states/UTs also plan to deploy around 52 lakh distribution transformer (DT) smart meters and 1.88 lakh feeder smart meters under RDSS, of which 2,93,140 DT smart meters and 17,358 feeder smart meters will be reserved for AP.
The feeder and DT smart metering would help in the automatic and accurate energy accounting for the purpose of identifying high loss areas. Till today, DPRs having total outlay of Rs 1,21,778 crore have been approved for Loss Reduction (LR) works and Rs 1,30,474 crore approved for smart metering works across India.
Out of total sanctioned cost under RDSS, Rs 5,897.22 crore has been released since the launch of the scheme upto December 6 as per the scheme guidelines. Of this, Rs 469.72 crore has been released for AP during the last two years and the current year.
According to the answer from the minister, the RDSS scheme will continue up to FY 2025-26. The target is to reduce the AT&C losses to pan-India levels of 12-15% and eliminate the ACS-ARR gaps by 2024-25. This would help in bringing financial viability of the Discoms and improve the power sector as a whole.
