Commercial losses in the Indian power distribution sector have always been too high for comfort. But despite that no credible step was ever taken to accurately assess the loss levels. The loss figures that were cited for reference were nothing but guesstimates. There was no authentic data as such. But information technology (IT) was never used to assess power sector losses. The situation was the same even after India became a leading global IT player.
IT was used in the power sector for the first time under the Restructured-Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (R-APDRP), a scheme unveiled by the Union power ministry in June 2008 to reduce aggregated technical and commercial (AT&C) losses in 1402 towns to below 15% from the prevailing level of 30%. A budget outlay of R51,577 crore was provided for the implementation of the R-APDRP programme but Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the nodal agency for the schme?s implementation, has brought down the same to R32,514 crore.
Every consumer has been linked to a transformer under the scheme. Besides, a mapping of discoms? assets has also been undertaken. That helps detect where exactly unaccounted electricity is going.
R-APDRP scheme was divided into two parts?to assess loss at first and then improve the system to reduce losses. ?IT helped us get sacrosanct figures on AT&C losses. Once IT-based loss figures were in place, loss reduction work started,? Satnam Singh, chairman, PFC, told FE.
For the first part of the project, which involves deployment of IT and SCADA, expenditure budget of R10,000 crore was estimated. But PFC managed to do the required work with just R7,000 crore and saved R3,000 crore. Similarly, the company brought down the cost estimate for the Part B of the project from R40,000 crore to R26,000 crore.
?We have made cost savings of R17,484 crore in R-APDRP execution,? Singh said.
An analysis of 54 discoms? financial performance in 2010-11 shows that four made no loss or profit, 11 earned profits and 19 reported losses if subsidy received by these utilities is also taken into account.
Of the remaining, 19 incurred losses when their finances were considered after excluding payment received by them on account of subsidy. Only five discoms reported profits after excluding subsidy payment.
?These discoms are expected to see a significant improvement in their finances after completion of the R-APDRP scheme,? Singh said.