Ispat tops MSEB defaulters list

MUMBAI, MAY 27: The Ispat group, Lloyds Steel, Telco, Jain Irrigation, PAL-Peugeot, Uttam Steel, Garware Polyster, and Century Rayon are s...

MUMBAI, MAY 27: The Ispat group, Lloyds Steel, Telco, Jain Irrigation, PAL-Peugeot, Uttam Steel, Garware Polyster, and Century Rayon are some of the names that figure in the quot;Top 100quot; defaulters list put out by the Maharashtra State Electricity Board MSEB. These companies owe MSEB a whopping Rs 620 crore.

The notable defaulters include the Ispat group, which is setting up a 312mw combined cycle power project at Dolvi 8211; Rs 110 crore, Uniferro International Gondia-Rs 99 crore, Lloyds Steel Wardha-Rs 70 crore, MEL Chandrapur -Rs 49.31 crore, Universal Fellow Allied Gondia- Rs 18 crore, Khandelwal Ferro Allow Gondia 8211; Rs 14.84 crore, Model Mills Nagpur-Rs 11.86 crore, Standard Mill Washi-Rs 10.59 crore, Century Rayon Kalyan-Rs 8.53 crore, NRC Kalyan-Rs 5.99 crore, Tata Engineering Pune-Rs 5 crore, and Jain Irrigation System Jalgaon-Rs 4.17 crore.

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 Tamp;D to cut the Tamp;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 Tamp;D. It plans to monitor the decrease in Tamp;D losses by fixing quarterly targets at the division level.