Ispat tops MSEB defaulters list

Mahindra Ugine Steel (Pen) owes Rs 3.79 crore, PAL-Peugeot (Kalyan)-Rs 2.88 crore, Uttam Steel (Pen)-Rs 2.45 crore, Shirke Paper Mills (Satara)-Rs 1.91 crore, Ballarpur Industries (Chandrapur)-Rs 1.88 crore, Garware Polyester (Aurangabad)-Rs 2.49 crore, Mukand (Kalwa)-Rs 1.20 crore, Prudential Cements (Yavatmal)-Rs 87 lakh, and Solapur Cooperative Spinning Mill-Rs 94 lakh.

MSEB sources said it will step up recovery efforts soon as per Section 24 of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910. The sources added that power disconnection was not possible always mainly due to prohibitive orders from the government, unemployment, labour unrest, and industry sickness.

In a related development, MSEB has launched an energy-accounting system, with an emphasis on calculations of transmission and distribution losses at the MSEB, zone, circle, and division levels. The purpose is to monitor the the loss-reduction programme as directed by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) in its recent order on tariff hike. The MERC has asked MSEB to cut transmission and distribution (T&D) to cut the T&D losses by 5 per cent from the existing 31.2 per cent.

Under the energy-accounting system, MSEB will prepare an energy balance sheet for T&D. It plans to monitor the decrease in T&D losses by fixing quarterly targets at the division level.