Rajasthan power firms pulled up for T&D losses

The tall claims made by the Rajasthan government about reducing transmission and distribution losses has fallen flat as the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has rapped power distribution companies on high transmission and distribution (T&D) losses.

The CAG in its report, tabled in the state assembly recently, said against the norms of 4 per cent for transmission loss and 11.5 per cent of distribution loss, actual losses ranged between 6.01 per cent and 8.15 per cent and 34.06 per cent and 45.51 per cent, respectively.

The report said the T&D losses, in excess of the norm of 15.5 per cent, amounted to Rs 11,624.80 crore for a period of five years from 2000-01 to 2004-05.

The performance of Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd, with regard to evacuation of power within state, deteriorated during 2003-05 as within state transmission losses increased to 4.72 per cent in 2003-04 and 4.59 per cent in 2004-05 as compared to 4.10 per cent in 2000-01, despite capital investment of Rs 1125.16 crore.

"Due to transmission and distribution losses in excess of the norm of 15.5 per cent, consumers had to bear additional burden of Rs 4,183.57 crore in the form of higher tariff equivalent to 17 per cent of average tariff for the year 2004-05," CAG said.

Distribution loss, in excess of that allowed by the regulatory commission, was Rs 2,508.75 crore during the period of four years from 2001-02 to 2004-05. The power companies also failed to check power thefts.

For every three cases of vigilance checking, two cases of theft were detected in Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd during 2003-05 indicating high incidence of theft prevailing in the system.

Inspite of this coverage of vigilance checking was not adequate as targets fixed were 2.5 per cent and actual checking was less than 1 per cent of the total consumers during 2003-04 and 2004-05.

CAG in its report said the percentage of defective meters to total metered consumers also increased in 2004-05 in comparison to 2002-03. Due to non-replacement of 0.79 lakh defective meters for over 6 months, Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd alone had sustained a loss of 57.53 million units valuing Rs 20.54 crore during 2004-05.