The latest ‘Report on Performance of Power Utilities in 2020-21’ published by Power Finance Corporation showed that Nagaland had the highest Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) loss of 60.39 percent, followed by Jammu and Kashmir (59.28 percent), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (51.94 percent), Arunachal Pradesh (44.87 percent) and so on.
In 2020-21, as per the report, Nagaland had a net input energy of 790 MU, Net energy sold 404 MU where Billing Efficiency was 51.20% and Collection Efficiency 77.36% amounting to 60.39 % of AT&C loss.
AT&C losses are a combination of energy loss and commercial loss. While energy loss may comprise technical loss, theft, and inefficiency in billing, commercial loss constitutes default in payment and inefficiency in collection.
Although Nagaland incurred the highest AT&C loss in 2020-21, Nagaland has been showing a slight improvement from 65.73% in 2018-19 to 64.79% in 2019-20 and 60.39 in 2020-21.
The report also showed that Andaman & Nicobar Islands also saw a deterioration in AT&C losses in 2020-21 (51.94 percent) compared to 2019-20 (23.34 percent), Andhra Pradesh (from 10.77 percent in 2019-20 to 27.25 percent in 2020-21), Madhya Pradesh (30.38 percent to 41.47 percent), Maharashtra (18.56 percent to 25.54 percent), among others.
The deterioration in the AT&C loss is significant because, PM Modi had on July 30, for the first time, expressed concern about India’s high AT&C losses in the power distribution sector and acknowledged that the same is currently in double digits, whereas in developed countries across the world, it is in single-digit.
“This means that we have a lot of wastage of electricity and therefore we have to generate more electricity than we actually need to meet the demand. There is a lack of investment in reducing distribution and transmission losses in many states,” he had said at the launch of the RDSS.
The same day, PM Modi had launched the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) with an aim to bring down AT&C losses to 12-15 percent by the financial year 2025. A budgetary outlay of Rs 3.03 trillion for five years has been allotted for the same.
Meanwhile, from 2018 to 2021, in the total revenue from operation, Nagaland witnessed an increase from Rs 157 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 190 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 210 crore in 2020-21. The total revenue on tariff subsidy increased from Rs 485 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 613 crore in 2020-21.
Nagaland also recorded a total of Rs 757 crore in expenses in 2020-21 which is an increase from Rs 673 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 570 crore in 2018-19. The expenses of power included cost of power including own generation, the employee cost, depreciation cost and ‘other cost’ among many.
For the ‘cost of power including own generation’, it was Rs 305 crores in 2018-19, Rs 392 crores in 2019-20 and Rs 439 crores in 2020-21. The ‘employee cost’ increased from Rs 137 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 142 crores in 2020-21, ‘depreciation cost’ increased from Rs 94 crore to Rs 143 crore during 2018 to 2021. However, it recorded only 0.04% in State-wise Gross Energy Sold (MU) in 2020-21.