Haryana seeks central help to help fund-starved power utilities

“We have floated our bonds worth Rs 400 crore and are negotiating with banks to restore funding. Our problems have increased because banks have withdrawn from the companies,I have requested the Centre also to advise banks to continue with their support to the power sector,” said Yadav. Efforts like stringent action against defaulters and officers responsible for line losses were also being pondered over for immediate implementation.

To help come out of crisis,Yadav has sought from the Centre additional power,quality coal and help in curbing the loss of coal in transit.

The generation company that is supplying power to these firm has in turn got its share from the rural electrification subsidy and a few crores otherwise — mostly no money has come back to it. Both the discoms are plagued by heavy line losses and non-payment of power bills,which has led these to default in payment to the generation company.

Line losses are mainly resulting from power thefts that have touched a new high in the last few years. Recently,the power utilities identified 14 feeders,which were suffering almost 100 per cent line losses — 11 out of these are in Rohtak,hometown of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The minimum was in Sirsa,hometown of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala. Sirsa comes under DHBVN,which had launched a campaign to curb line losses and registered 219 power thefts. It now has only 19 per cent of line loss — lowest in state.

The dubious distinction of having maximum line losses was earlier with Jind,but the same has now been snatched by Rohtak and Jhajjar. The UHBVN is worried that 173 feeders under its control are suffering 50 to 75 per cent losses. Out of these,53 are in Rohtak and 44 in Jhajjar.

The government has set up eight police stations to exclusively register water and power theft cases. During 2004-05,while there was 31 per cent line loss,this has now come down to 19 per cent. Meanwhile,Haryana Power Utilities Chairman Ajit M Sharan has directed DHBVN to launch a special campaign to recover defaulting amount,replace defective meters and check theft of electricity.