UDAY: Going to get tough for discoms

To ensure stricter UDAY-target compliance by discoms, the government will mandate via a new law that their losses due to pilferage/theft exceeding 15 percent can’t be considered for tariff determination. (PTI)

To ensure stricter UDAY-target compliance by discoms, the government will mandate via a new law that their losses due to pilferage/theft exceeding 15 percent can’t be considered for tariff determination. Power minister RK Singh said the move would mean additional aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses arising from discoms’ inefficiency are not passed on to consumers.

The minister also said that the new tariff policy will cap cross subsidy charges at 20%, a move that would help lower industrial electricity tariffs and spur manufacturing.

Discoms’ AT&C losses have come down from 26% in FY15 to around 21% now, thanks partly to the UDAY scheme launched in November 2015.