Amid rising line losses in the already ailing power sector, the Forum Of Indian Regulators (FOIR) has suggested that the country follow the Gujarat model for bringing down losses.

A sub-committee of FOIR, a representative body of electricity regulatory commissions, which met in Varanasi during the weekend, came to the conclusion that in order to reduce aggregate transmission and commercial (ATC) losses, which in some states was as high as 50%, the states needed to follow Gujarat, which brought down ATC losses from 40% to 15 % in the last few years.

Impressed by Gujarat?s efforts, FOIR, which had experts such as Central Electricity Authority (CEA) chairman Rakesh Nath, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) chairman Pramod Deo, and chairpersons of Haryana, Delhi, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh electricity regulatory commissions attending the meeting, decided to finalise and circulate a draft to the Centre as well as their respective states that they, too, can follow the same model if they wish to bring down the line losses substantially.

Speaking to FE, Vijoy Kumar, chairman of Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission, (UPERC) said that it has been felt that in order to fulfill the FOIR?s undertaking to the Prime Minister that the states would bring down the ATC losses to 15% by the end of the 11 th plan period in 2012, it was necessary that Gujarat?s experiment be repeated in the entire country.

?The experts found that the model of loss reduction followed by Gujarat was the best in the country.

?There the state government bifurcated the rural supply and provided the domestic consumers 24-hour power supply on a single phase, while the private tube wells (PTW) were given 8-hour continuous supply for irrigation on a three-phase line.?

The three-phased line for irrigation helped save power too, as the high-current lines tripped every time anyone attempted to hook on to them illegally,? Kumar explained.

Apart from bifurcating the rural supply, the Gujarat government went a step further and installed specially designed transformers which trip whenever a single-phase consumer tries to draw electricity from a three-phased line.

Stating that FOIR would soon finalise the draft and circulate the same among the states as well as the Center,

Kumar said, adding that line losses needed to be plugged at the earliest in order to save power.

At an astounding 40%, ATC losses in Uttar Pradesh stand to be one of the highest in the country, followed by Jammu &Kashmir, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Haryana.

Stating that time was running out on the states, Kumar said that in order to meet the deadline promised to the Prime Minister, the states need to translate the promises into action.

?Gujarat has already brought down its losses to 15%. By the end of the 11 th plan, it would probably get it down further to 10%. But if the rest of the states do not start acting on it soon, they would be way behind the expected figure,? he stated.