BHUBANESWAR: The Grid Corporation of Odisha Limited (Gridco) has moved the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (ATE) challenging the October 22, 2021 order of the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission for disallowing legitimate expenses amounting to Rs 5,509 crore incurred by the corporation over five financial years.
Filing three appeals before ATE, the state-owned corporation said OERC has not considered the uncontrollable expenses towards power purchase cost to the tune of Rs 923 crore from 2015-16 to 2019-20. Gridco said the commission allowed Rs 6,032.98 crore towards power purchase cost for 2015-16 against the actual cost of Rs 6,188.32 crore without any rationale or reasons, creating a revenue deficit of Rs 155.34crore.
On the other hand, the commission stated that Gridco had earned Rs 156.40 crore from trading and Rs 8.23 crore from unscheduled interchange (UI) rates with total other earnings of Rs 164.63 crore. Similarly, for 2016-17 against the claim of Rs 6,541.91 crore, the commission allowed Rs 6,302.12 crore creating a revenue gap of `452.96 crore against the previously approved power cost of Rs 5,849.16 crore.
For 2017-19 fiscal, the OERC allowed Rs 7,132.68 crore for power purchase, creating a revenue gap of Rs 7,13.10 crore against the previously approved power cost of Rs 6,419.58 crore against its claim of Rs 7,360.29 crore. The commission left a revenue gap of Rs 409.15 crore for 2018-19 and Rs 757.57 crore for 2019-20 financial year on grounds that bulk supplier of power had earned Rs 547.49 crore and Rs 709.8 crore respectively from power trading and other sources.
It further submitted before the apex tribunal that a revenue gap of Rs 3,588 crore till the end of 2014-15 financial year has remained in the book of accounts of Gridco as a regulatory asset. While OERC failed to consider the profit and loss statements of Gridco for the five year period, it erred by deducting the amount earned by the bulk supplier of power from the from trading of surplus power from the net revenue of the petitioner. Enlisting other expenses not taken into account by the commission, Gridco urged ATE to dismiss the OERC order and direct it allow truing up expenses for this period as per the rules.