The Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) has proposed to sanction a loan of Rs 2500 crore to APDISCOMs for further system improvement schemes like HVDS, feeder separation, installation of 3-phase metering, establishment of citizen service centres etc for overall strengthening of distribution network.
This was done in recognition of good performance by the AP power utilities. According to Principal Secretary of Energy Department M Sahoo, despite facing several challenges in power sector in view of severe shortage of fuel, the overall performance of AP power sector has been improved by successfully reducing the Transmission and Distribution losses to 16.17 per cent as against the national average of 26 per cent and increasing the transmission availability to 99.89 per cent.
The Principal Secretary has directed AP TRANSCO CMD Hiralal Samariya to examine for utilizing the loan for strengthening and betterment of the sector so as to provide quality and satisfactory power supply to the consumers. The government is very serious in proper and judicious utilization of capital expenditure, he said.
The REC officials informed the Govt. that the objective of the NEF scheme was to reduce the distribution losses and improve quality of power as well as to improve the financial performance of the Utilities, like reduction of Gap between Average Revenue Realization (ARR) and Average Cost of Supply (ACS).
For the proposed loan of Rs 2500 crores, the interest subsidy of maximum 5 per cent will be reimbursed to AP DISCOMs under the scheme, subject to achieving the targeted parameters like reduction of ARR-ACS gap, reduction of line losses by certain percentage etc. (INN)