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Meagre allocations shock Discoms
Meagre allocation of funds to the Energy Department has disappointed Discoms, which have been waiting for government to release pending dues in the form of subsidies and funds allocated over successive years.
​Hyderabad: Meagre allocation of funds to the Energy Department has disappointed Discoms, which have been waiting for government to release pending dues in the form of subsidies and funds allocated over successive years.
- They have denied the funds that were allocated
- Increasing burden forcing Discoms to opt of rate hike
The Telangana government allocated Rs 5,115 crore under non-plan and Rs 190 crore under plan budget for 2016-17 and has stated that it would bear the burden of free power to the agriculture sector and tariff of poor worth Rs 4,470.10 crore.
According to sources, the government has not released even the money allocated to the department. A senior official, who did not wish to be named, said that during 2014-15, government allocated Rs 4,978 crore but spent only Rs 3,504.49 crore and did not release the remaining Rs 1,474.19 crore.
The allocations during 2015-16 were Rs 7,480.06 crore, but the actual amount spent was Rs 4,690.06 crore and the remaining Rs 2,790 crore were not released.Though government declared a tariff subsidy of Rs 4,257.24 crore, it has released only Rs 3,192.93 crore leaving out Rs 1,064.31 crore subsidy component to the Discoms, leaving them with the burden.
The Discoms have purchased power from other states worth Rs 800 crore. Government had stated that it would pay only Rs 300 crore to them and the remaining burden of Rs 500 crore lay with the Discoms.
In the current financial year, government declared that it would provide Rs 1,000 crore, but limited it to Rs 850 crore. Similarly, in 2014-15 government announced Rs 1,000, crore but didn't release a single rupee. Earlier this month, the Discoms said that they have a deficit of Rs 8,789 crore and urged the ERC to allow them to collect Rs 1,958 crore by imposing hike in power tariff.
The government aims to start nine-hour power supply from 9 am from the next Kharif season, but it announced a subsidy of only Rs 4,470.10 crore, thereby imposing a burden of Rs 2,361 crore. This is in addition to the 'true up' charges burden of Rs 1,500 crore belonging to 2014-15 and 2015-16. The Discoms would have to gather this amount through price hike only, said sources.
Presently, the power supplier discoms of northern and southern Telangana would be paid Rs 12,000 crore. Though government said it was determined to achieve a generating capacity of 23,912 MW within the next three years with Rs 91,500 crore investments, there is no mention of funds to meet the expenditure.
Finance minister Etela Rajender on Monday said that companies like Genco, Singareni and NTPC would take loans to complete all projects. However, sources said that the loan factor would impose additional burden on the companies since the loan would contain interest factor and generally these are time consuming procedures. The project cost would escalate if there is a delay in execution of project works, said sources.
