State's power utility capital expenditure up by 160%

The state owned power distribution utility Mahavitaran’s which has undertaken massive modernisation and upgradation program of its distribution network will undertake capital expenditure works worth around Rs. 4424 crore which is an increase of whooping 160 per cent.

Speaking with media persons managing director of the Mahavitaran A B Pandey said, currently we distribute around 15,000 MW of power through our network and considering future demand we may have to carry more than 22,000 MW and we are gearing up to meet this challenge.

He further said, during last fiscal capital works worth around 1692 crore started and this year this figure is expected to touch around 4400 crore and work orders worth around Rs. 3,000 crore have been already given.

Replying to question Pandey said, "We able to increase our expenditure on network upgradation and augmentation because of drastic cuts in transmission in distribution losses which we manage to achieve, which helped the discom to come in to black from red during last fiscal year".

Elaborating on his point Pandey told, erstwhile state electricity board was trifurcated in three different utilities for generation, transmission and distribution in 2005-06, T&D losses of Mahavitaran were around 32 per cent and discom incurred the losses of Rs. 303 crore.

By fiscal 2007-08 we managed to bring down T&D losses to 24 per cent which increased Mahavitaran's monthly collection from Rs. 1100 crore to Rs.1650 crore and helped to earn profit of Rs. 107 crore.

Reduction in T& D losses, increase in cash collection and bringing company from red in to black helped us to improve our image in the market and raise necessary capital from market, required for our network modernisation and upgradtion program, he added.