Less than half of the State Electricity Boards (SEBs), which have been restructured, have made profits in 2007-2008, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said today.
In a written reply to a question asked in Parliament, Shinde informed that the electricity boards of only six states — West Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka — out of the 14 restructured SEBs have registered profit in the year 2007-2008.
Out of the remaining eight restructured SEBs, six have registered losses in the year. These are Assam, Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
This restructuring of SEBs — which means their unbundling into separate entities for power generation, transmission, distribution and trading business — is mandated by the Electricity Act of 2003 which prohibits SEBs from functioning as integrated power utilities.
The unbundling of SEBs is a part of the power sector reforms and is aimed at improving their financial health by streamlining operations of generation, transmission, distribution and trading, while also promoting transparency and accountability of the these boards.