Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 28 (IANS) The government Wednesday held power regulators and the states responsible for transmission and distribution (T&D) losses which are expected to mount to Rs.68,000 crore by the end of the 2010-11 financial year.
The losses amounted to Rs.40,000 crore in the last fiscal.

“The government and we at the Planning Commission are primarily worried of the state of distribution sector. If this continues, we would lose Rs.68,000 crore on T&D losses during the current fiscal. Our T&D losses during last fiscal was Rs.40,000 crore,” Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a conference of state power ministers here.

Ahluwalia said if power tariffs were not revised the T&D losses would go up. “State governments and the regulators have to look into these problems and ensure that the R&D losses are brought down,” Ahluwalia added.

“The power regulators instead of revising tariffs have taken it easy to review it. As such losses have mounted,” said commission member B.K Chaturvedi.

Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who addressed the conference, told reporters later that the country had built up infrastructure to generate 58,000 MW in the 12th five-year plan (2012-17).

“Although the capacity addition for the 12th plan is still to be finalized, we are tentatively looking at targeting 100,000 MW. The work on projects of about 58,000 MW capacity which are likely to give benefits in the 12th plan has already begun,” he said.

The government had set a target of generating 78,000 MW for the current plan ending 2012. But it could produce 22,302 MW in the first three years ended March 2010.

Shinde said the flow of bank credit to power sector had increased by nearly 300 percent between April and November 2009 from the corresponding period the year before.

The Plan panel has estimated that the power sector needs Rs.1,000,000 crore investment by the end of the 11th Plan (2007-12).