THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While the state electricity board has gone for an average power tariff increase of 6.8 per cent and the domestic consumers will have to bear 11.4 per cent hike, the moot question being asked is why the board is not aggressively pursuing the huge dues to be paid to the board.
According to the compiled data, as on March 31 this year, KSEB has to receive dues to the tune of Rs 1,388.20 crore, of which the collective dues from various government departments are Rs 95.71 crore and from local self-government bodies Rs 4.20 crore.
Various central government departments have to pay Rs 2.32 crore and the public sector undertakings under the state governments have a balance of payment of Rs 98.31 crore to the board. Besides, the central PSUs owe the board Rs 43.57 crore. The private sector establishments have power bill dues of around Rs 950 crore but a major part of this cannot be collected owing to the pending court cases and litigation.
Among the state government entities, Kerala Water Authority has the highest dues of Rs 1,068 crore. The state government has confirmed that it will be paying this amount in four instalments in the next four years but whether this will materialise is a million dollar question.
P S Prasanth, state general secretary of the Electricity Board Officers Confederation, told Express, “The board is in a precarious financial situation. There are lakhs of faulty meters which lead to a huge revenue loss to the board. Even the Electricity Regulatory Commission has given a directive to the board regarding the same.”
According to the documents presented by the statutory audit for the 2017-18 financial year, the operational losses of the KSEB have come down to RS 784.09 crore while this was Rs 1,494.67 crore in 2016-17. Board chairman NS Pillai had, in a press release in October 2018, stated that this was achieved by collecting the dues to the board as well as reducing transmission losses and by selling surplus power.
Even after admitting that the board had collected dues owed to it and that the operational losses had considerably been reduced, the question is why the board has gone for such a steep hike in its tariff rates now.
J Satyaraj, KSEB Officers Association state president, told Express, “The board is fighting for its survival and there was a revenue gap of around Rs 6,600 crore during the 2011-16 period. The board had conducted massive drives to collect its dues which was around Rs 2,600 crore during 2018 and now it has come down to around Rs 1,300 crore. The power tariff hike was indispensable. It was in 2017 that the board had last hiked the tariff and with spiralling inflation, the board had to go for a hike.”