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

Uttar Pradesh
auxiliary consumption. The present level of auxiliary consumption of 10.3 per cent is
certainly on the higher side when compared to the CERC norm of 9 per cent.
The investments made on renovation and modernisation (R&M) of the existing plants is
presently very low despite the considerable potential of these plants which could
contribute towards reducing the energy deficit in the State. Till date, only about Rs 200
crore have been spent during the post-reform period up to 2004-05 on R&M of the
ageing plants due to the persistent cash-crunch in the State.
Investment in Transmission and Distribution
There have been no focussed initiatives to improve the transmission infrastructure by
way of adequate investments so that there is improvement in the quality of supply and
there is a reduction in losses. The pace of investments in transmission has in fact, slowed
down after 2000-01. UPPCL has, however, fared better in terms of improvement of
tranformation capacity at grid sub-stations and has been able to sustain the growth
momentum during the post-restructuring period.
There has been an inadequacy of the reactive compensation in transmission system of
UPPCL. The situation regarding transformation capacity and available reactive
compensation (at the end of 2003-04) is as under:
Aggregate secondary transformation capacity 12,000 MVA (approx)
Requirement of reactive compensation 7,200 MVAR
Installed capacity of capacitor banks 4501 MVAR
Capacitors in working order
7.3
3,309 MVAR i.e. about 73%
of the installed capacity
Such a highly under-compensated system not only leads to low power factor and low
voltage but it also puts additional strain on the system.
Consumer Metering
At the retail consumers’ level, out of a total of 8.2 million consumer connections, only
4.6 million or about 56 per cent are presently metered. Metering in the agricultural sector
is almost negligible and in the domestic sector, it is about 50 per cent. In view of this, it
is clear that the figures of consumption and consequently loss figures are not realistic.
This has also led to considerable difference of opinion between the SERC and the
utilities on the assessment of unmetered consumption and consequently, the distribution