Power Min misses target despite rise in output for Nov-Dec

Demonetisation may have negligible impact on power sector as output grew by 8.53 per cent in November and 6.13 per cent in December year-on-year but Power Ministry could not achieve the targeted electricity generation during the respective months.
There was a fear that junking high value currency notes of Rs 1,000/500 will lead to slowdown in all segments in the economy including power sector.
According to the Central Electricity Authority monthly report, total power generation in the country was 95.123 billion units (BUs) in December 2016, which was 6.13 per cent higher than 89.625 BUs electricity generation in the corresponding month previous year.

However, as per the report, the electricity generation target of 96.999 BUs could not be achieved in December.
Similarly, the CEA report said power generation grew 8.53 per cent in November, 2016 to 93.235 BUs compared to 85.904 BUs in same month year ago. However, the target of 93.236 could not be achieved.
"The generation in the month of November was almost on track as there is not much difference in the actual output and target. But power generation is 1.8 BUs short of the targetted output in December," said an expert.

According to the CEA data, the per capita consumption of electricity was 1,075 units in 2015-16 as per provisional estimates. Therefore, output of 1.8 billion units could have lit thousands of houses in the country where a large number of people either live without electricity or face outages due to shortages in supply.

However, Power Ministry data indicates that distribution companies collections increased by more than Rs 3,000 crore from November 10 to December 15, 2016 compared to last year i.E. After the demonetisation move.
According to the Power Ministry, this will help achieve affordable tariffs.
North Bihar Power Distribution Company saw a 204 per cent increase, NESCO in Odisha 251 per cent, APDCL in Assam 97 per cent and TANGEDCO in Tamil Nadu witnessed 97 per cent rise in collections.
However, the experts think that this has happened because people have parked their black money with discoms to pay their electricity due in advance for many months.

They think that such practice will not continue as utilities have already stopped honouring junked high value currency notes of Rs 1,000/500.