New plan to clear power dues

The centre is working out a seperate payment mechanism for clearing of power dues by the electricity boards in the union territories and the...

The centre is working out a seperate payment mechanism for clearing of power dues by the electricity boards in the union territories and the national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi.

These entities have not been covered under the recently signed tri-partite agreements (TPA) between the government of India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the state governments for clearing the old dues of electricity boards amounting to Rs 37,400 crore as a one-time measure.

Senior government officials said that the union territory administrations and the government of NCT of Delhi are not legally empowered to issue bonds or give guarantees, as is required for signing the TPAs under the scheme for one time settlement of outstanding dues of the state electricity boards (SEBs) to the central public sector undertakings (CPSUs).

Story continues below this ad

Their Budget is controlled by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) and if they have to raise bonds, it has to be serviced by the MHA. The union territory administrations and the GNCTD cannot give guarantees and do not have the powers to issue the bonds?, officials said.

The total outstanding dues of these union territories (UTs) and the GNCTD are over Rs 5000 crore. Delhi alone has an outstanding amount of Rs 4491 crore. Discussions on the alternative payment structure for UTs and the GNCTD were held recently at a high level meeting of officials from the ministries of home, finance, power and the Delhi government.

RBI keeps repo rate unchanged at 5.5%

Business23 min ago

The Reserve Bank of India Wednesday kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.5 per cent. "MPC decides to keep monetary policy stance unchanged at 'neutral'", says RBI Governor. This is the second time that the repo rate has been kept unchanged.

View all shorts

Live Blog

PHOTOS