Vijayawada: Power sector revenue falls steeply in State

Vijayawada: State Energy secretary Srikant Nagulapalli said the power sector was ready to provide quality and uninterrupted power supply to all in this crucial period of health emergency which was declared due to outbreak of Covid-19 in the country.

He said the power utilities have made all arrangements to give 24x7 uninterrupted power supply during the lockdown period and to increase the power production and supply after the lockdown was lifted in the State.

In a statement here on Sunday, Srikanth said the power consumption decreased by 10 to 21 per cent due to lockdown in the State and the situation may worsen in the coming two months with steep fall in the commercial, railway traction, HT and industrial loads if the present trend continues in the State.

The AP Grid consumption on a daily basis, which was hovering around 190.5 Million Units on March 21, suddenly plummeted to 174.5 MU by March 22 and by 154.5 MU by March 26 due to lockdown imposed following the outbreak of Covid-19 in the State.

Srikanth said the steep fall in consumption has severely affected the revenue collection in the last week of March. The collection was only Rs 158.6 crore which is only 40 per cent of the revenue collections achieved during last year for the same month, he added.

It is expected to take till August to restore normalcy in revenue recoveries if the monthly consumptions reduce by 20 per cent in April and May. In case of 30 per cent reduction in consumption for the same months, it may take until September to regain the normalcy in collections. "This would result in Discoms unable to make payments to power generators and for debt services as they use the revenue collections for the purpose," Srikanth pointed out.

In view of these worst conditions, the State government has come to the rescue of power utilities and gave guarantees to secure loan amount of Rs 3,500 crore from Power Finance Corporatxion Limited (PFCL) to meet the financial requirements of working capital for this unprecedented period.

He informed that power utilities formed special task forces with adequate staff to avoid any inconvenience to people who are staying at home and to hospitals in view of lockdown conditions. "Measures have been taken to run the critical installations with staff and other resources including spares and distribution transformers etc," an official said. He said almost 14 lakh metric tonnes (MTs) of coal reserves had been stocked in all thermal plants of APGenco and maximum units were brought under reserve shutdown due to the fall in demand for electricity.

The generation can immediately be ramped up whenever it is necessary and the mining operations and all logistic support is tied up for the next three months. Secretary for Energy Srikant reviewed the critical issues of power sector with Joint Managing Director, HRD/APTRANSCO K V N Chakradhar Babu and other senior officials of power utilities on Sunday.