A high-voltage performance

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has an ambitious dream. He wants to ensure that all households in the state enjoy uninterrupted power by 2005.

That might sound like a Utopian dream to Indians, accustomed to brownouts and blackouts. But Naidu could be closer to his dream than most people might imagine. During the last four years the state Government has poured money into the state's transmission & distribution (T&D) system.

It hasn't been money wasted. The result has been a high-voltage performance by APTransco (the successor to the Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board). APTransco has introduced a slew of reforms that include building almost a thousand new sub-stations and putting up high voltage lines criss-crossing the state.

How has this helped? Consider some statistics: Transmission & distribution losses have fallen steeply from 38 per cent in 1999 to 26.13 per cent in 2003. That's slated to come down further to 24.63 per cent in 2004.

Bringing down T&D losses has helped to brighten up APTransco's bottomline considerably. In 2002-03 the company's losses fell by a gigantic Rs 1,000 crore from the previous year.

Says Rachel Chatterjee, chairman and managing director, APTransco: "We are the best in entire country in terms of reducing transmission and distribution losses, which benefited our consumers in two ways. We ensured them the reliable and quality power supply, and contained tariff increases."

Chatterjee has presided over a virtual revolution at APTransco. Back in 1996-97 APSEB earned revenues of Rs 3,296 crore. That has climbed to Rs 8,128 crore in 2002-03 "" a rise of 147 per cent.

Transco's revenues have been climbing for a variety of reasons. Aside from slashing T&D losses, it has begun a massive scheme to replace 4 million meters around the state.

So far about 720,000 meters have already been replaced. The result: metered sales have climbed from 38 per cent in 1999-2000 to 46.4 per cent in 2002-03. Cost recovery had also shown a big improvement from 61 per cent in 1999-2000 to 81 per cent in 2002-03.

In other ways too the corporation has moved to ensure higher returns from its activities. It installed over 800 industrial feeders and that has brought in more cash from revenue-earning high tension sales.

Chandrababu Naidu knows from experience that elections can be lost or won on electricity, which is why he has ensured that it gets utmost priority. Back in 1999 the united opposition launched widely supported protests against hikes in power tariffs. Ever since then the Naidu Government has been trying its level best to improve power in all corners of the state "" without raising tariffs.

But the revamp of APTransco has been a gargantuan affair. The corporation's network has had to be upgraded at almost every level. In the last eight years a whopping 950 substations have been built (including three large 400KV ones).

Also several thousand kilometres of transmission and distribution lines have been added in all corners of the state. At the upper end, about 2,033 circuit km (power lines have to be laid as three parallel wires so 1km needs 3km of wire which is called a circuit km) of 440KV lines have been added.

The 440KV lines help to reduce T&D losses and eliminate the problem of low voltage which plagues Indian power distribution networks. Andhra Pradesh is one of the first states in the country to install 440KV lines on a large scale.

Understandably, there is a huge bill for these activities. Back in 1997-98 the state spent about Rs 300 crore annually on T&D. That jumped to Rs 612 crore in1998-99 and went up to Rs 1,118 crore the next year. In 2002-03 the Government spent Rs 1,206 crore on T&D.

On the generation front too the Government has been moving swiftly. In the last eight years, about 5,000MW has been added to the state system (3,685MW in the state and private sector). Also, the 1,000MW Simhadri Thermal power station in Vizag has been put up by the NTPC exclusively for Andhra Pradesh.

That has almost doubled generation to 10,635 MW, which makes Andhra Pradesh second to Maharashtra nationally. Another 4,369 MW, mostly under private sector, is likely to be commissioned in the next four years.

By next January, Vemagiri power, a 400MW gas-based power project, (one of the four gas-based fast track projects cleared by the government way back in 1998) should be commissioned. With this capacity addition and the anticipated improvement on hydel generation, Chatterjee hopes to achieve the dream of providing uninterrupted power supply to domestic consumers even in the rural areas by 2005.

"In all likelihood we are going to eliminate the forced discrimination between towns and villages in power supply from 2005," says Chatterjee, pointing to the plan for 24-hour power supply to rural habitations.

The state Government has fought many battles on the electricity front. The World Bank had insisted on a rigid timeframe for issues like the privatisation of distribution companies. The Government resisted giving such guarantees.

Now it has lenders lining up with offers of money to Transco. Incidentally, APTransco has only taken the first tranche of about Rs 1,000 crore of the sanctioned Rs 4,000 crore World Bank loan.

APTransco still has a giant task ahead. Earlier this year it had seemed the company had slowed down slightly. But now it is pushing ahead at full steam with its T&D development plans. It is likely to commission another 580 substations of various capacities at a proposed cost of Rs 1,760 crore during current fiscal and 2004-05.

Out of 433 33 KV substations planned over the period of two years, 280 substations have been proposed during the current fiscal at a cost of Rs 375 crore. Of these 137 substations have already been commissioned.

APTransco wants to speed up its work and commission the remaining substations by February, as power demand is likely to outgrow the existing T&D network. Agricultural consumption, for instance, is growing rapidly in the state and that is posing heavy demands.

With elections round the corner the government wants to leave no stone unturned to provide adequate supply to agriculture. Also, it wants to ensure that proper voltage levels are maintained. For this seven, 400 KV substations costing of Rs 620 crore will be constructed soon.

Besides this 12 220 KV substations costing Rs 124 crore, and 61 132 KV substations costing Rs 236 crore are at various stages of construction under the accelerated power development programme (APDP). The power utility plans ambitiously to reduce its T&D losses to 19.5 per cent by the 2007. That will be an extraordinary feat if it is pulled off.

Demand in the state is, of course, climbing extremely quickly. The daily peak demand, which is now at around 6,900MW, is expected to touch 7,610MW by March 2004, leaving a shortfall of 1,590MW. So, APTransco must speed up its activities even more to make sure that all the people of Andhra Pradesh have power available to them at the flick of a switch.