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VOICE OF ELECTRICITY WORKERS
Power Ministry contradicts own claim on unbundling
The Union Ministry of Power has been
pushing the state governments hard to unbundle their electricity boards. It
claims that the step will make the boards commercially more viable.
However, its claim has been turned upside down by its own report got prepared
through the Power Finance Corporation from two prominent credit-rating
orgnisations, the ICRA ad the CRISIL.
Commercial viability, the most important factor, is the poorest in most of the
unbundled power boards. The Punjab State Electricity Board, which has not been
unbundled yet, figures almost at the top of the list of boards as far as
commercial viability is concerned, according to the rating organisations.
The report, based on the latest data and drafted in March, has been made
available to power boards by the Union Ministry of Power.
The Punjab board has scored 9.2 points out of a total of 16 kept for the
commercial viability segment for each board. There were a total of 100 points to
assess the performance of the power sector of states based on a marking system.
For external factors such as the state government and the state regulatory
commission there were 17 and 15 points, respectively. To assess the internal
factors in boards, there were 6 points for generation, 21 for transmission and
distribution, 20 for financial risk analysis, 16 for attaining commercial
viability and 5 for other factors.
The Delhi board, which was unbundled in 2002, has got zero in the commercial
viability segment and so has the Haryana board, unbundled in 1998, Likewise,
Rajasthan, MP and Uttaranchal boards, which were unbundled between 2000 and
2002, also scored zero. The Uttar Pradesh board, unbundled in 2002, secured 2
points and the Andhra Pradesh board, which was unbundled in 1998 3.2 points. The
Gujarat board, unbundled last year, got 4.2 points and the Punjab board, yet to
be unbundled, 9.3 points.
The report says that Punjab has done well on this parameters it reduced losses
in 2003-04 as compared to 2001-02. In the overall rating of the commercial
viability segment, Punjab has performed better than all big states. It is at the
fourth place, the first three being Chhattisgarh, Goa and Himachal Pradesh.
In fact, as far as the assessment of internal factors such as transmission,
distribution and financial risk analysis are concerned. Punjab’s performance is
again far better as compared to Delhi, UP, Rajasthan and Haryana, all having
unbundled power boards. Among northern states, its rating is at the top except
Himachal Pradesh. There were a total of 68 points for various internal factors.
Punjab has scored 28.28 points out of 68.
Otherwise, Punjab overall rating is 13th. With only 8.54 out of 32 points, it
has got a poor rating as far as the state government and state electricity
regulatory commission factors are concerned. In fact, if Punjab’s power sector
had scored better in the government factors segment, it would have been among
the top boards in the overall rating.
In the case of Punjab, the report lists its strengths as 93 per cent
electrification of households, commercial viability (profit Rs.174 crore in 2003
o4), 100 per cnet interface metering, 53 per cent energy billed and good
operational performance of power plants.
Among the weaknesses listed are subsidy not given by the state government in
cash but through offsetting of interest on government loan, delay in filing
tariff order, energy audit at the preliminary stage, high man power base,
aggregate technical and commercial losses 26 per cent on the higher side,
unfunded pension liability and defaults on loans.
Courtesy: The Tribune
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