Costly power purchase, decline in revenue proved costly for PSPCL; Punjab power utility slips, Haryana maintain its annual ranking position
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ March 12,2024
Punjab state power corporation limited (PSPCL), the power utility of Punjab has slipped to B grade and Haryana’s Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam(DHBVN) Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam(UHBVN) have maintained their A+ grade in the 12th National annual ranking report.
Both the UHBVN and the DHBVN have maintained their A+ group but now are at 11th and 12th position. Last year DHBVN and UHBVN were at 8th and 9th position. UHBVN improved its performance by 0.3% while DHBVN went down by 2.6%.
PSPCL has slipped to B grade and is at 20th position. Last year PSPCL’s ranking was at 16th position with A grade. PSPCL suffered major downfall by 22.34% from 83.8% to 61.6%.
The downfall of PSPCL is driven by 61 paise increase in power purchase cost, 11 paise increase in other costs (mainly employee costs) but 14 paise decline in revenues.
PSERC allows auto pass-through of fuel costs, however the PSPCL did not file any increase in tariff to compensate power purchase cost. The report suggests that PSPCL should reduce short term borrowings next year.
The evaluation parameters for state and private utilities are financial sustainability (75%), performance excellence (13%), and external environment (12%).
12 out of 53 distribution companies receive A+ rating including Gujarat and Haryana. State utilities of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are in A category.
Adani Electricity Mumbai has topped the list of India’s 53 power distribution companies (discoms), followed by Torrent Surat and Ahmedabad taking 2nd, 3rd spot. Next three spots have gone to Gujarat state companies.
Costly power purchase, decline in revenue proved costly for PSPCL; Punjab power utility slips, Haryana maintain its annual ranking position. This year, a total of 12 power utilities out of 53 received an A+ rating comprising six state-owned and six private distribution companies. 4 companies including one private company got A grade. 7 companies including PSPCL got B grade along with one private company. This year no company got D grade, said V K Gupta, spokesperson of All India Power Engineers Federation.
As per report, overall AT&C losses in the country improved to 15.4% in the financial year 2022-23, billing efficiency improved to 87.0% and collection efficiency remained high at 97.3%. State governments disbursed 108% of amounts booked for tariff subsidy during 2022-23.
