Disappearing power

With such an ambitious plan made public, officials in Shram Shakti Bhavanare busy trying to figure out the cost of 100-per cent metering and ofconducting the energy audit. One estimate given to the Ministry by theCentral Electricity Authority (CEA) puts the cost of 100 per cent meteringat 6,520 crore and a proposal is being prepared for the minister on thebasis of this estimate. The CEA has apparently calculated that 100-per centmetering can save up to Rs 2,700 crore annually and thus the cost ofimplementation of the project can be recovered in 30 months. Some privatecompanies are also known to have given proposals for mapping the powerlosses though no decision on hiring them has been made.

Even as these exercises are underway, some startling trends have been thrownup from figures recently collated by the Power Ministry. Percentages ofTransformation, Transmission and Distribution losses have been risingsharply since the 14.39-per cent losses in 1947. The latest availablefigures are for the year 1996-97 when the losses were calculated at 23.41per cent. In fact, officials maintain, that the actual losses would be evenhigher than this and Kumaramangalam himself put the estimated losses in anygiven year at between 35-40 per cent.

When translated into monetary terms, the power losses acquire a hugedimension. Take the case of the states which head the list of defaulters.Orissa tops the list with power losses (including commercial losses) of 49per cent for the year 1996-97 which translates to Rs 3,000 crore annualy.

The state of Orissa tops the list with 49.47 per cent losses whichtranslates into Rs 1,340 crore and Delhi follows close behind with 49 percent losses. Due to the extremely high power consumption in the Capital, thevalue of the losses is put at Rs 3,000 crore. Another state notorious forhigh power losses is Andhra Pradesh where losses have been pegged at 33.60per cent and the estimated value of the losses at Rs 1,340 crore.

Thus, India has to share the ignominious reputation of having among thehighest T&D losses in the world when losses in other advanced countries havebeen ranging between 6 per cent-11 per cent. The high losses in India, nowunfortunately, compare with developing countries like the Dominican Republic(38.80 per cent), Myanmar (36.13 per cent) and Bangladesh (33.30 percent).

A note on the subject prepared by the CEA last month, however, admits thatconditions in India are not comparable with other advanced nations as“operating conditions” were very different. It states that taking thepeculiar Indian situation into consideration and looking at the guidelinesissued by the CEA, T&D losses between 10per cent – 15 per cent in differentstates alone can be acceptable.

There are several reasons why power losses in India are almost three timesthe “acceptable” level. One category are losses due to energy dissipationin conductors and equipment and the absence of proper energy meters in thedistribution sub-stations. But the crippling problem plaguing the sectorremains the commercial/unaccounted losses on account of defective meters,theft and pilferage. The CEA has stated that the theft is committed by“anti-social elements in connivance with the unscrupulous officials in theutilities having intimate knowledge of the electrical system… a strongadministrative will is needed to eliminate the incidence of theft ofenergy.”

The Ministry has also been informed that the existence of unauthorisedconnections, tampering of meters by consumers and non-functioning of meterswere among the methods of power theft. The CEA had also spoken of the laxityin the administrative machinery of the utilities for meter reading andchecking of the revenue leakage through unauthorised electric supplyconnections which is now becoming a law and order problem. In many of theState Electricity Boards (SEBs), power to the agricultural sector is notmetered and a flat-rate tariff is charged.

The question of SEBs itself is a complicated one for figures show thatbesides a clutch of states like Tamil Nadu, Haryana. Himachal Pradesh andKarnataka, the SEB’s of all other states were in deficit even if thesubsidy was not taken into consideration. Over the years the deficit of theSEBs has been growing gradually adding up to a huge Rs 10,684 crore by theyear 1989.

Officials say that the deficits in the SEBs mounted during the Sixties andthe Seventies but only got accentuated when the Public Sector Undertakingscame into the picture in the late Seventies. In a few years, dues from theSEBs to the PSU’s began to mount up. A table of figures with the PowerMinistry show that the outstandings from the SEBs have grown from Rs 9,126crore in 1997 to a whopping Rs 22,158 crore in January 2000. This includesthe Rs 12,190 now due to the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) andRs 3,525 from the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC).

Therefore, rationalisation of tariffs, fiscal management of the SEBs andminimizing power thefts these are all problems rolled into one. Even ifthe Power Ministry succeeds in implementing its ambitious plans of having acountry-wide energy audit and competing 100 per cent metering by the year2001, the power sector reforms would have just begun.