Power supply in Roorkee, Kashipur to be privatised

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 4

The Congress-led state government is all set to privatise power distribution in two cities under a pilot project to be launched in the state for the first time. In the first phase, Kashipur in Udham Singh Nagar and Roorkee in Haridwar district have been selected for privatisation of power distribution under the public private partnership (PPP) mode. The state government will set up infrastructure while private companies will perform functions of power distribution, customer care service, and revenue collection in the two cities.

Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) officials said the state government had decided to give electricity distribution to private companies in order to curb line losses and increase revenue of the corporation.

Well established sources revealed that UPCL had started drafting plans to invite bids from private players for power distribution to domestic, and commercial customers. The decision to privatise power distribution in these two cites was taken after UPCL submitted an annual revenue requirement (ARR) report to Uttarakhand Electricity Regulatory Commission (UERC) for revising tariff for the next financial year.

It may be recalled that UPCL has been facing line losses since the inception of the state. Efforts made by UPCL to curb line losses had proved insufficient to check pilferage of electricity in the state.

The data compiled by UPCL clearly highlighted that aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses were reduced from the maximum level of 53 per cent in 2003-04 to 20 per cent in 2013-14, with an anticipated target for further reduction to 18 per cent by March 2015.

Officials expressed concern that the maximum cases of electricity theft were reported from Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar districts of the state. Rural areas of Dehradun city were among the worst affected.

Sources said the state government would talk to consultants to review the power distribution system in Kashipur and Roorkee cities to hand over the services to private companies.