Stressed discoms to turn around in 3 years: Goyal

Power Minister Piyush Goyal today said the government is in active dialogue with the discoms on turnaround plans and there will be a noticeable changes in the situation of stressed utilities in the next three years.
The combined debt of the power distribution companies (discoms) is over Rs 3 lakh crore. Faced with acute financial stress, many of these discoms are unable to buy power.
"We are in active dialogue with the discoms. We have a broad framework under which, I am very confident three or four discoms which are very stressed will have a roadmap. In the next three years, you will see a sea-change in the story of discom," Goyal said on the sidelines of an Assocham event.

Elaborating further the minister said: "What we are working on is a more holistic approach where the discoms themselves will be encouraged to bring about the change the turnaround. We will handhold them and ensure that within defined timeframe we turn these around."
He said that the Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) which was originally introduced in April 2012 and implemented in October 2013, had actually not changed the situation on the ground.
"It (FRP) failed to bring about any significant improvement in Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses and financial losses of the companies," he added.
In an attempt to restore power purchasing capacity of the debt ridden discom and also to enable banks to recover their loans, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved the scheme for Financial Restructuring of state distribution companies (Discoms) in September 2012.