Bengal Power Corp Seeks Govt Assistance To Repay Loans

Though the corporation has been making profits and should face no difficulty in repaying its debts, it is short of cash with the mounting outstanding by the West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB).

The corporation sells power to WBSEB. The present outstanding has moved up to around Rs 400 crore which is equal to 7/8 months power sale. The average monthly bill is Rs 50 crore. On the other hand, WBPDCL owes about Rs 150 crore to various organisations.

The corporations debt to IDBI was Rs 17 crore till March, 1996 after the state government cleared another Rs 80 crore on the corporations behalf. It will have to repay Rs 83 crore in 1996-97. The total outstanding by the end of this year will, therefore, touch Rs 100 crore unless payments are made.

 

Dues to PFC till September was Rs 60 crore while another Rs 20 crore will accumulate by the end of this financial year. In short, WBPDCL must make repayments to the tune of Rs 180 crore to the two institutional lenders by March, 1997. Since the PFC repayment amount is smaller , WBPDCL has requested PFC to convert the quarterly instalments into monthly instalments which will be less than Rs 4 crore.

The corporation will be revising its tariff from December 1. Against the present rate of Rs 1.12 per unit including fuel surcharge, the tariff will increase by 11 paise. The increase will be in the basic rates which will go up from 46 to 57 paise a unit.

The tariff revision will fetch the corporation an additional Rs 4.5 crore a month. This is enough to make monthly repayment of its loan to PFC. However, it has no such payment programme for IDBI till WBSEB starts clearing up the outstanding.

The board has been paying at the rate of Rs 35 crore a month against the average billing of around Rs 50 crore. The billing will now be nearly Rs 55 crore after the revised tariff comes to effect from December 1.

But then, the board expects to generate an additional revenue of Rs 225 crore a year from its tariff revision effective from November 19. Though WBPDCL hopes that the additional income will help WBSEB reduce the outstanding, it is still keeping its fingers crossed.