The commercial losses of the state electricity boards have increased almost threefold to Rs 33,177 crore in 2001-02 compared to Rs 11,305 crore in 1996-97.
The losses, after taking into account subsidies for agricultural and domestic consumers, have risen to Rs 24,837 crore from Rs 4,674 crore between 1996-97 and 2001-02, according to a report of the Planning Commission working group on SEBs.
The net internal resource generation of SEBs has also been on a downward spiral, falling from minus Rs 2,091 crore to minus Rs 19,104 crore in the past five years.
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The report says gross subsidies, which include concessions to agricultural and domestic consumers and on inter-state sale of power, have increased to Rs 43,060 crore from Rs 20,211 crore. The gross subsidy per unit has increased from 75 paise in 1996-97 to 127 paise per unit in 2001-02.
However, while the plant availability of SEBs has improved from 79 per cent to 80.50 per cent, the plant load factor, the true measure of performance, has climbed from 64 per cent to 70 per cent.
Transmission and distribution (T&D) losses are also showing a declining trend after shooting to 31 per cent in 1999-2000 from 24.5 per cent in 1996-97. T&D losses declined to 27.8 per cent in 2001-02.
Taking note of the slow pace of the power sector reforms, the report says though farm tariff has increased to 41.54 paise per unit in 2001-02 from 21.2 paise in 1996-97, it is still below the minimum level of 50 paise per unit agreed to at the chief ministers' conference last year.
Subsidies to farmers have increased two-fold to Rs 30,462 crore from Rs 15,586 crore during the period, while in case of domestic consumers, the subsidisation has increased three-fold to Rs 12,238.5 crore in 2001-02 from Rs 4,386 crore in 1996-97.
The share of domestic and agricultural consumers in the total energy sales has gone up to about 50.1 per cent in 2001-02 as against 49 per cent in 1996-97 while that of industry has shown a declining trend to fall to 29 per cent in 2001-02 from 33 per cent in 1996-97.