The government is in the process of rolling out a new tariff policy and Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana 2.0 (UDAY) to address the discoms losses that stood at Rs 73,425 crore.
Under the new tariff policy, the discoms would have to pay a surcharge for delayed payments, which would be equal to the commercial rate of interest, Power Minister R K Sinha informed.
“After the rollout of tariff policy and UDAY 2.0 scheme, if a discom would not take steps to reduce losses, then the government would not give any grant or loan,” Singh said, adding that new tariff policy has already gone to the Cabinet for vetting and approval while the power ministry is working on the UDAY 2.0 scheme which would be launched in this fiscal year.
According to the PRAAPTI portal, the total outstanding of the discoms to gencos as of July this year stood at Rs 73,425 crore, including the overdue amount of Rs 55,276 crore.
“There is a capacity to transfer (supply) any quantum (of power). There is no reason why 24X7 power cannot be given. The only difficulty in this (24X7 power for All) is losses to some distribution utilities. They don’t have money to pay for power,” Singh further said.