Reduce losses, says President

President APJ Abdul Kalam asked the power ministry to reduce losses by 19,000 mega-watts over the next three years in a phased manner.

"We should allocate sufficient funds to introduce innovative systems for increasing the transmission efficiency in the power grid and minimising the unaccounted power through audit and metering," Kalam said, while giving away the awards for best performance to the thermal power plants.

Transmission and distribution losses in the country are pegged at about 40-50 per cent, the President said, and asked the power ministry to ensure that losses in case of thermal plants are reduced to 12,000 Mw from the present 31,000 Mw.