Reduce discoms' AT&C losses to below 15% in one year: Panel

A Parliamentary panel today asked the government to bring down AT&C losses of discoms to below 15 per cent within a span of one year rather than by 2019-20 as envisaged by the Power Ministry.
Concerned over the slow pace of reduction of aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses in the country over the last many years, the Committee had many times recommended to provide an explicit timeline to achieve reduction of AT&C losses to 15 per cent, Ministry of Power's Standing Committee on Energy said in its report.
As per the trajectory for AT&C loss reduction as agreed by all the state power utilities, AT&C losses are to be brought down below 15 per cent by financial year 2021-22. The same is now proposed to be achieved by fiscal 2019-20, it added.

"The Committee, while appreciating the reduction in timeline set for AT&C losses, will like to re-emphasise that the timeline of 2019-20 should be further reviewed as the result of the completion of part A&B of the R-APDRP (The Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme) will... Leave their impact form the next financial year," the panel said.
"As majority of the term under part A of the Programme has been declared go-live and around 272 towns have been covered under part B of the programme, it becomes all the more necessary that AT&C losses brought down to the desired level within a span of one year," it added.

In view of the commercial losses which have a major share in AT&C losses and which would be eliminated completely, the panel said that the ministry should expeditiously prepare separate data for technical and commercial losses.