Yogi to replicate 'Gujarat Model' to curb power theft

'Power to All' requires 20 million new connections in UP

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, which has signed the ‘Power to All’ document with the Centre to provide 24X7 electricity supply to all households is gearing up to replicate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state ‘Gujarat Model’ to curb rampant power theft in the state.

Aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses, including power theft and pilferages, are to the tune of almost 40 percent in the state, thereby indicating the high level of uneconomical power utilisation and subsequent financial losses to the power distribution companies (discoms).

Under stringent Gujarat Model, special police stations and vigilance squads would be set up across UP to curb power theft. Such specialised police stations function at Vadodara, Surat, Sabarmati, Rajkot and Bhavnagar to weed out power thieves and pilferers, All India Power Engineers Federation chairman Shailendra Dubey told Business Standard.

At present, the peak load power demand of UP stands at about 15,000 megawatt (mw), which is projected to hover around 18,000-19,000 MW during the summer months of May and June. Within two years, when the ‘Power to All’ would be fully implemented, the total power demand in UP is expected to hover around 22,000 MW.

As per Central Electricity Authority (CEA) data, 71 percent and 19 percent UP households in rural and urban areas respectively are devoid of electricity connection. At the same time, about 6.3 million consumers derive power through ‘katiya’ (illegal) connection and are unbilled.

The number of various category of electricity consumers in the state is about 18.8 million. The aim to providing ‘Power to All’ by October 2018 would require new power connections to 20 million additional households.

Experts claim a major portion of the additional power demand towards meeting the incremental energy demand from households and new power connections to be given under ‘Power to All’ could be met from the savings arising out of the AT&C losses coming down to about 10 percent.

UP energy minister Shrikant Sharma today reiterated the government’s resolve to strictly deal with power theft without fear or favour. The department is gearing up to launch an intensive drive to identify illegal power connections, provide new connections to households, strengthen transmission and distribution network etc to economise on energy.

In run up to 2017 UP poll, ‘Power to All’ was a flagship pre-poll sop dished out by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

At the end of 2015-16 fiscal, the accumulated losses of UP power discoms had breached Rs 60,000 crore mark and under the central Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY), the state government had made budgetary provisions of Rs 40,000 crore to issue bonds to these discoms. It was projected that UDAY would accrue savings of Rs 33,000 crore to the state discoms and enable them raise fresh capital for future investment.

UDAY is a scheme of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government for the financial restructuring of the country’s ailing discoms, which had collectively accumulated losses of Rs 3,60,000 crore.

Power generation by state owned thermal & hydel power stations is about 4,000-4,500 MW. The private sector generation stands at about 5,000 MW, while UP’s share from the Central sector is roughly 6,000 MW, of which UP is getting about 5,000 MW. UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) has long term and short term power purchase agreements (PPA) of about 3,000 MW.