UPCL to resort to partial rostering, says new MD

A K Johari would try to bring down AT and C losses to 23% by the end of 2012-13 from the current level of 25%

The Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL), the sole electricity provider in the hill state, has now decided to improve the health of the company and reduce Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT and C) losses to 23 per cent and has indicated partial rostering in view of the existing power shortfall.

In a new roadmap, UPCL’s new managing director A K Johari said the company would focus on the improvement of the health of the corporation and bring down the AT and C losses to 23 per cent by the end of 2012-13 from the current level of 25 per cent.

The energy deficit of 1,946 GWh would be met by energy procurement, banking and overdrawl with partial rostering depending on the grid frequency condition, Johari said.

The power supply position in 2012-13, for Uttarakhand, envisages a resultant energy gap of 1,946 GWh with unrestricted demand of 10,967 GHw against the energy availability of 9,021 GHw, he said.

The government appointed Johari as the new MD of the loss-making corporation after removing his predecessor Anil Kumar Jain on alleged corruption charges. Johari was serving as director (operations) in the UPCL, which had faced the ire of some Congress leaders during the recently-concluded Assembly elections for allegedly purchasing power at higher rates from outside the state.

The removal of Jain also came at a time when a new draft performance audit report by the Accountant General (AG) had recently censured the UPCL for its poor planning, irregularities in contracts, un-metered billing, rising liabilities of Rs 3,135.38 crore and heavy losses which reached Rs 1,960.11 crore in the last financial year.

The power utility is facing a loss of 55 paise per unit. The revenue gap of the UPCL during the last financial year was Rs 398.29 crore.

Stung by the adverse draft performance audit report, state power secretary S S Sandhu had already been asked to convene a special meeting of the UPCL’s board of directors to discuss the issue immediately and make a time-bound action plan for bringing the company back on track.

The report has castigated the UPCL for its “poor planning” that is leading to overloading of transformers, causing frequent failures. This is because the transformation capacity has not been increased in accordance to the connected load, it said.