The aggregate book losses on accrual basis of all the state power utilities increased by nearly 36% to Rs 89,603 crore in FY16 as the utilities in Maharashtra went into a loss of Rs 28,029 crore in the fiscal against a profit of Rs 1,834 crore in FY15. The performance report recently released by the Power Finance Corporation noted that Maharshtra’s losses were mainly because the utilities have charged depreciation of Rs 27,588 crore on revalued assets for the period FY06 to FY15. The aggregate revenue from sale of electricity for utilities selling power directly to consumers increased by 5.5% to Rs 3,92,398 crore. The revenue growth in FY15 was 12.6%.
Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal continued to remain profit making states for two straight years. Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Haryana showed considerable improvements in the fiscal, cutting their losses by Rs 6,819 crore, Rs 2,823 crore and Rs 1,394 crore, respectively. Apart from Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab deteriorated their losses in FY16 by Rs 2,043 crore and Rs 1,477 crore, respectively.
The difference between the average revenue realised and the average cost of supply (ACS-ARR gap) for power utilities across the country, on the basis of subsidy received, went up to Rs 0.65/unit in FY16 from Rs 0.58/unit in FY15. Aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses fell to 23.98% from 25.72% in FY15. However, AT&C losses in FY14 was 22.6%.
Subsidy booked by utilities selling directly to consumers increased from Rs 47,965 crore in FY15 to Rs 57,680 crore in FY16. Subsidies constituted 14.7% of the revenue of the utilities in FY17, up from 12.9% in FY15.
