Report of Indian Institute of Public Administration ... - Ministry of Power

West Bengal
The restructuring proposals under consideration include separation of the COGP
business including selling it off to SAIL and transferring the water business to the
Durgapur Municipal Corporation. In future the option of merging the generation
business with the WBPDCL and the distribution business with the successor entity of
the WBSEB remain open.
CESC LIMITED
This is the oldest distribution licensee in India operating in an area of 567 sq. km in
Kolkata and adjoining areas. Its generating capacity is 975 MW of Thermal Power. In
2004-05, they generated 7,054 MU of energy against which 5,864 MU was sold. The
PLF of the generating stations was 82.6 per cent and availability factor was 93.2 per
cent. The T&D losses have come down from 22.8 per cent from 2000-01 to 16.3 per
cent in 2004-05. AT&C losses have similarly come down from 23.2 per cent in 2000-
01 to 16.8 per cent in 2004-05.
The company has undertaken 100 per cent metering. They have no agricultural
consumer. They own 267 ckt km of EHT line, 749 ckt km of HT line and 9,625 ckt
km of LT line. It is a profit-making company declaring dividends to its shareholders.
The company has the advantage of serving the compact metropolitan area of Kolkata.
CESC will not come under the purview of proposed reforms.
WEST BENGAL STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD
The Board continues to be an integrated entity. It has 167.7 MW of hydel generating
capacity and 100 MW of gas based generating capacity. Due to abnormally high cost
of generation the gas turbine power station has not been running from 2003-04. The
Thermal Power Plants at Bandel and Santaldihi have been transferred to WBPDCL
from 1 April 2001. In 2004-05, the Board sold 13,548.62 MU of energy. Investments
made to improve generation capacity and efficiencies: Rs 317.04 crore was spent in
2003-04 for adding new capacity. This went up to Rs 380.94 crore in 2004-05. For
renovation and modernisation the annual expenditure is around Rs 3 crore. The Board
has achieved 100 per cent metering except for agriculture, in which only 20 per cent
of the connections have been metered. 98 per cent of the bills are generated through
computer in 44 divisional computer centres. They have achieved 100 per cent billing
and collection efficiency. The Board has been doing well for the last five years.
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