NEW DELHI: Discoms in India reported a loss of Rs 50,281 crore in 2020-21, according to a report by state-run Power Finance Corporation (PFC). It is 66% more compared to Rs 30,203 crore in 2019-20. The aggregate losses due to power subsidy, after excluding regulatory income and revenue grant under UDAY (discoms revival scheme), increased from Rs 63,949 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 88,500 crore in 2020-21.
Discoms’ tariff subsidy increased from Rs 1,20,828 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 1,32,416 crore in 2020-21. As a percentage of total revenue, tariff subsidy billed by the discoms increased from to 18.53% in 2020-21 from 16.52% in 2019-20. As per the report, all states barring 13 released the entire subsidy amount billed to their respective discoms.
Those which have not made the full payments include Delhi (which paid 92.5% of the subsidy amount), Karnataka (92.07%), Bihar (91.24%), Punjab (87.36%), Maharashtra (86.30%), Rajasthan (77.17%), Tripura (73.79%), Jharkhand (73.74%), Madhya Pradesh (70.75%) and Andhra Pradesh (36.84%), among others. The report on performance of power utilities in 2020-21 was unveiled by power minister R K Singh at state power ministers’ conference in Udaipur.
It covers 117 utilities comprising 68 discoms, 23 power generation utilities, 22 power transmission utilities and 4 power trading utilities. The Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) loss in the electricity sector increased from 20.73% in 2019-20 to 22.32% in 2020-21.
AT&C losses are energy loss and commercial loss, which includes technical loss, theft, and inefficiency in billing, commercial loss constitutes default in payment and inefficiency in collection. The report noted gross energy sold by distribution utilities was 10,24,309 MU in 2019-20 and 10,05,044 MU in 2020-21 registering a year-on-year decrease of 1.88%.
Discoms’ tariff subsidy