VIJAYAWADA: Despite being faced with a severe financial crunch, the Andhra Pradesh discoms are making all-out efforts to clear the dues of renewable power purchase developers.
The Energy Department said out of the total Rs 2,255.97 crore to be paid to the solar and wind generators, the discoms cleared Rs 1,212.28 crore in December 2019.
According to a statement from the department on Wednesday, the discoms have to pay Rs 1,896.87 crore to 219 wind generators and Rs 359.10 crore to 44 solar generators by the end of September, 2019, as per the High Court order. Of this, Rs 1,228 crore has been cleared.
“The discoms have made payments, which were due for almost 18 months, to all the renewable power generators despite the entire power sector in AP being in a crisis. The utilities have raised loans from financial institutions such as IREDA, PFC, APPFC and banks like SBI and Andhra Bank. The loan proceeds realised from APPFC and IREDA have been utilised to pay the dues of renewable energy developers,” the statement explained.
The discoms paid Rs 18.82 crore to solar and wind developers on Dec 12, Rs 205.89 crore on Dec 18, Rs 119 crore on Dec 19 and Rs 868.57 crore on Dec 31. Energy Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy said that the discoms were almost bankrupt due to high-cost renewable energy.