Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal will launch the web portal and a Mobile App for one of India’s most talked about scheme—-or the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) for operational and financial turnaround of state power distribution companies.
Financial health of state power DISCOMs has been a big blot on the performance of state’s power sector and in order to make these DICSOMs financially viable and operationally sustainable, the scheme UDAY assumes a lot of significance.
The App and the web portal, to be launched by Goyal on Wednesday (January 4, 2017), will provide all details on the scheme including the number of states joining the scheme as also the progress achieved by each state under various parameters listed under the scheme—-including AT&C losses, cost of electricity, bonds issued and others.
In fact, the ministry of power has already made all agreements on UDAY that it has so far inked with the 18 states. The new portal and the app will detail the exact progress being achieved by every state under the scheme.
UDAY has been one of the most talked about schemes and has been designed to wipe out the operational and financial mess of these DISCOMs, accumulated over the years.
Also on the side lines of the ceremony to launch the two apps, two more MoUs for UDAY would be signed with the States of Assam and Telangana, thereby taking the total tally of states joining the scheme to 20.
UDAY scheme was launched on November 20, 2015 and India has already got its first state power distribution company that has been able to eliminate its losses after joining within 10 months of joining UDAY.
The DHBVN or Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam—- one of the two state power distribution companies of Haryana that joined the UDAY scheme on March 11, 2016 has not just been able to completely wipe out its losses for the first time but has also posted a profit of Rs 201.35 crore in the first half of the current financial year (2016-17) as against a loss of Rs 479 crore last financial year (2015-16).
Haryana state has two DISCOMs namely UHBVNL and DHBVNL had joined UDAY on 11-Mar- 2016. While the state had incurred a loss of Rs 815 cr in 2015-16 for both DISCOMs combined and had given loss projections of Rs. 2911Crs for 2016-17, Rs. 1878 Crs for 2017-18 and Rs. 456 Crs for 2018-19, it is noteworthy that one of the two DISCOMs is back to profits—the first ever since it was created.
As per the ministry, 16 of the 18 states that have joined the scheme already have achieved a lower gap between their average cost of electricity supply and average cost of realisation and about 12 states have reduced their Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) loss levels.
With the remaining states on board, this scheme—that has been termed as the game changer scheme by both industry and experts—can permanently solve the long-pending issues of India’s distribution sector and revive the power sector as a whole.
