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

Uttar Pradesh
created under the first transfer scheme, had only one company secretary and a common
finance director. It is, therefore, extremely important that the Government assist these
corporations in quickly strengthening the management structure and facilitate
independent operations.
ENERGY ACCOUNTING
The DISCOMs are required to maintain their separate funds and to work independently.
However, in practice such freedom/autonomy is not being experienced at present. The
fund flow is from DISCOMs to UPPCL and is again redistributed among the DISCOMs.
This way even a better performing DISCOM may not get its proper share and has to
compensate from its share to the other DISCOMs, whose performance is relatively poor
but needs are more. This spirit discourages the real ability to perform better. This should
be discontinued and each DISCOM should be made accountable for its energy handled,
sold, asset-management and revenue matters. In fact, what emerges is that the transfer of
assets among different entities of the power sector may require a review from the
management and ownership point of view.
A robust energy audit measurement infrastructure considerably assists in pin-pointing the
problem areas in distribution and increasing accountability. Consumer indexing and
feeder level monitoring of supplies is a critical part of this efficiency chain. Considerable
financial assistance is available from the Central Government in the form of APDRP
loans and grants to improve the energy audit system of the DISCOMs.
COLLECTIONS FROM GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS/INSTITUTIONS
The problem of mounting arrears in the books of the DISCOMs is an area of concern.
Poor collections from Government departments/institutions form a considerable part of
the total arrears.
The poor collection levels, coupled with the high level of T&D losses, is pushing the
State power sector into a severe financial crisis so much so that the companies are not
able to pay for adequate power purchase to Central utilities and State generation entities.
This, in turn, is leading to financial un-viability of the generation sector as well.
The State Government, therefore, needs to institute requisite mechanism to ensure timely
recovery of the power dues from such Government Departments/Institutions.
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