Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, May 5: The State Government has directed the Power Development Department (PDD) to cut down Transmission and Distribution (T&D) and Aggregated Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses to 50 per cent and transformer damages to 15 per cent during current financial year.
This, the Government believed, would help in reducing the heavy losses suffered by the PDD every year on account of power purchase and expenses on various other counts.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Government has asked the PDD authorities to take drastic measures to bring down T&D and AT&C losses from current 65 per cent to 50 per cent by the end of 2013-14 i.e. the current financial year.
As per the available figures, the T&D losses had been ranging between 72 per cent to 65 per cent during past about one decade. Despite several measures initiated by the previous Governments, the T&D losses haven’t come down from 65 per cent.
Sources said the Government has given the target to PDD to reduce T&D and AT&C losses to 50 per cent in the current financial year to lessen ever increasing losses on account of power purchase and supply, which had constantly been growing with every passing year.
The Government has also tasked the PDD to take measures to bring down transformer damages to 15 per cent as against the current damage of 40 percent.
“The national average of transformer damage ranged between 5 per cent to 10 per cent but in Jammu and Kashmir it was as high as 40 per cent. However, we have asked the PDD to bring it down to at least 15 per cent if not at par with national average of 5 to 10 per cent,’’ sources said.
The damage to transformers is mostly reported in Jammu during summer and Kashmir during winter when they are subjected to undisclosed load of air conditioners and heaters respectively.
Sources said the PDD has been directed to update load and install transformers accordingly to cut down the damage. The Department had to bear huge expenses on account of repair and change of damaged transformers.
According to sources, to achieve the target of T&D and AT&C losses, the Government proposed to make transfers up to Assistant Executive Engineers (AEEs) level “performance oriented’’.
The Government has been suffering over Rs 2000 crore worth losses on account of power purchase in a year, which could go up during current financial year if the revenue didn’t go up and T&D and AT&C losses were not reduced.
The Government had to purchase Rs 4000 crore worth electricity during last financial year i.e. 2012-13 as against Rs 1900 crore worth revenue including Rs 700 crores collected from the Government buildings. The losses were above Rs 2000 crores, sources said.
The losses suffered by the Government on account of installation of new transformers are in addition to the deficit on power purchase bill.
Sources said the Government was also planning to take some other drastic measures to bring down the losses, which could be announced soon.
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