Southco draws up plan to arrest power loss in South Orissa

After initiating measures to address low-voltage problem by commissioning new transformers as well as repairing old ones, Southco, a unit of Reliance Energy and one of the power distribution companies, has drawn up a ` 492-crore plan for next four years to reduce the aggregate transmission and commercial (ATC) loss by 21 per cent. The present ATC loss in Southco is estimated at 50 per cent.

With the fund, the company seeks to reduce the loss to three per cent in the current year.

Addressing mediapersons in Berhampur recently, vice-president of Southco, Tapan Mishra, said out of the total estimated cost, the State Government will provide ` 109.33 crore as a soft loan at four per cent interest and ` 136.67 crore without interest.

The rest 246 crore will be spent by the distribution company from its own resources as matching fund. Besides reducing the ATC loss, the fund will also be utilised for improvement of power distribution system and avoid low-voltage in some parts of the distribution area.

Southco has taken responsibility to distribute power in 10 southern Orissa districts of Ganjam, Gajapati, Koraput, Rayagada, Nabarangapur, Malkanagiri, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Kandhamal and Boudh.

Due to ATC loss, distribution companies Southco, Wesco, Nesco and Cesu are riddled with various problems and the State Government is also incurring huge revenue loss.  To arrest this, the Government took a policy decision to spend around 2,400 crore. Of which the Southco would get 492 crore, said Mishra and added a sum of 61.50 crore would be spent during the current year and ` 123 crore next year.  In 2012-13 and 2013-14, ` 133.25 crore and ` 174.25 crore would be spent respectively. Mishra said the power loss was mainly due to pilferage, tampering of meters and non-payment of electricity dues.  If one per cent of ATC loss can be curbed it would save around 200 crore, he said. Under the plan, pre-paid meters would be installed in some of the urban areas besides other measures like supply of power through insulated bunch cables and installation of 11/33 KV sub-stations to address the low-voltage problem.

Source: New Indian Express