Power tariffs likely to increase to sustain power supply

06 Jul 2011 Evaluate

The power tariffs are expected to follow the path of fuels prices, after fuel price hike, pressure is mounting for an increase in power tariffs. A recent discussion between the power ministry, central and state regulators and distribution utilities point to situation where power utilities have to increase the tariffs in order to sustain the supply of power.
 
As per the status report on power distribution prepared by power ministry, the total loss of the India’s 110 power utilities, comprising 37 purely distribution firms, are estimated at Rs 86, 136 crore. If the prices remained at the present level, the loss of power utilities is expected to reach Rs 116,089 crore by 2014-15. The power utilities loss is expected to be much higher, after including the subsidies provided by the state governments. The government owned lender, Power Finance Corporation reckoned subsidies to be around 19% or Rs 29, 665 of the public sector firms in 2008-09.  Subsidies have considerably increased from past few years; it increased by around 14% or Rs 19,518 in 2007-08 and 11% or Rs 13,590 crore in 2006-07. 

This demonstrates that the states are giving extra subsidies both in absolute terms as well as percentage of revenue. However, the power firms are facing cash flow problems since the percentage of the subsidy that is actually released by the cash-strapped state governments has been declining over the years. In 2008-09, for example, Rs 29,665 crore was booked as subsidy by the utilities. They, however, received only 61% of this amount -Rs 18,388 crore, leaving a gap of Rs 11,277 crore.

Because of this, the power utilities are forced to take short-term loans on higher interest rate to meet their operational expenses. And some time state regulators don’t give permission to power utilities to include interest in cost, as a results power utilizes carry huge loss. The total outstanding of the utilities in 2008-09 is estimated at Rs 56,627 crore, while their debt stands at Rs 1,33,013 crore. Around 22 utilities are having negative net worth and just 17 utilities are in positive net worth, whereas only 10 utilities are in surplus.

Currently, even after subsidy, there are 50 paise mismatches between cost and selling price of power, power utilities are charging on an average Rs 2.91/ unit, whereas their cost of supply is Rs 3.41/unit. The state governments’ reluctance to give permission to raise the tariffs as the increased tariffs would make situation more worsen. Since 2010, only 16 states had revised tariffs, and like Delhi, Assam and Karnataka has not increased tariffs from 2009.

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