State of Haryana’s finances — Part III
Power losses drain on state’s resources
Ruchika M Khanna
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 28
The mounting losses of Haryana Power Utilities (HPU) and the reluctance on the part of Haryana Government to raise the power tariff has ensured that power sector remains a big drain on the state’s limited resources.

Though unlike in Punjab, where power is provided free of cost to agriculture sector, Haryana provides power to farmers at a highly subsidised rate. But the power subsidy bill for Haryana, at Rs 3,600 crore per annum, is almost as high as in Punjab. What makes the situation worse is the problem of non-payment of electricity dues by hundreds of thousands of consumers across the state. The outstanding dues from these consumers are pegged at a whopping Rs 3,200 crore, with the government soft-pedalling on the issue of collecting these dues from its traditional Jat voters.

Even as the losses of the state power utilities have increased to a whopping Rs 7,100 crore, and the loans taken by the four utilities -- Haryana Power Generation Corporation, Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam, Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam -- touched Rs 15,268 crore, with banks refusing to extend more credit, political will seems to be lacking in controlling the losses by paving the way for a hike in power tariff, in consonance with the hike in the power input costs. Sources in the state power utilities said consumers were still paying almost Rs 2 per unit less than the actual supply cost of power per unit. The power tariff has not been revised in the past 10 years (except for a marginal hike effected last year), even as the cost of coal for running the thermal power plants in the state have been rising. Though new power generation capacity has been added in recent years, some of these power plants have been developing snags and power generation is hit.

Talking to The Tribune, the state Power Minister, Capt Ajay Yadav, while justifying the power subsidy to the agriculture sector, said with the rising input costs in agriculture, the government had to subsidise power to farmers. “The issue regarding raising the power tariff is pending before the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC). The two power distribution companies have gone to the regulatory commission seeking a hike in tariff for 2012-13, showing a huge revenue gap of over Rs 7,000 crore. The government has no interference in this, and the regulatory commission has to decide on the new tariff,” he said. He also added that the state power utilities had managed to bring down the transmission and distribution losses from 41 per cent to 24 per cent now.

Regarding the non-payment of power bills, Yadav accepted that a large number of rural domestic and urban domestic consumers in the Jat dominated areas of Bhiwani, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Kalayat and Hisar had not been paying their electricity bills.