GEB firms to go on stream by April 1

The six new companies set up after the bifurcation of the monolith Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB) will become fully operational from April 1 next year.

Declaring this in Surat on Wednesday, Gujarat power minister Saurabh Dalal said this bifurcation and restructuring has been done in the overall interest of the Gujarat Electricity Board as well as the state.

The bifurcation and restructuring of the state power utility has lead to setting up of four distribution companies - in north, south, east and west Gujarat, one generation company and one transmission company.

"GEB has a huge customer base of over 7.5 million which goes on increasing every year and an employee strength of 60,000. Restructuring the board was the best option," he said.

It was in February this year that the state government introduced two bills in the state legislative assembly.

The first Bill pertains to the restructuring of the state electricity board and the second bill pertains to prevention of theft of power.

Referring to the recent step taken by his department in opting for a fresh agreement with five independent power producers, Dalal said by renegotiating a lower rate under the power purchase agreement, the state government stands to benefit by Rs 495 crore.

"This is for the first time that a state had taken such an initiative", he said.

Citing the example of G-PEC, he said the power purchase agreement entered into with this private sector power producer by the Shankersinh Waghela government was resulting in a net loss of Rs 55 crore every year.

"Such was the agreement that irrespective of the use we had to shell out Rs 55 crore every year," he said.

According to him, in the next five years, there would be no gap between the demand and supply of power in the state because new power projects are coming up all over the state.

Dalal also said that action against power theft would be further intensified in the coming days.

"We have saved more than Rs 1,000 crore by taking strict measures on the anti-theft front," he said.

"The electricity board had been a loss making entity since long and the cumulative losses of the past five years alone stand at a staggering Rs 7,000 crore, " he said.

Giving statistics, the minister said that the income of the electricity board stood at Rs 695 crore by December 23 last year

"Whereas this year, till yesterday, the total income was to the tune of Rs 727 crore," he said.