Awareness, raids and change: How Haryana’s discoms brought down electricity line losses by over 50%

Speaking to The Indian Express, Haryana Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala attributed the fall in losses mainly to checks on electricity theft and recovery of pending power bills.

AT&C losses is considered a measure of performance of a power distribution system as it includes losses in terms of both energy and revenue.

According to Haryana Additional Chief Secretary (Power) PK Das, the reduction in AT&C losses has resulted in a better financial situation for the discoms.

“Our annual turnover is nearly Rs 28,000 crore,” he said. “When AT&C losses are reduced by 1 per cent, our revenue increases at the rate of nearly Rs 280 crore (1 per cent of the turnover) annually”.

Also, he added, it is due to this fall in losses that power tariff in Haryana has not been increased in the past six years.

A recent report of the Union Ministry of Power — Tenth Annual Integrated Rating and Ranking of Power Distribution Utilities — pegged Haryana at number two among Indian states, second only after Gujarat. The ranking is based on an exercise that covers 41 state distribution utilities spread across 22 states.

Chautala said: “When BJP took over the power from Congress (in October 2014), our discoms were placed at 15 and 17th position among 41 discoms across the country. Now we are in the 5th (Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited or DHBVNL) and 6th (Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited or UHBVNL) rank among states. The top four state-owned companies are all from Gujarat. So, in terms of position among states, we are number two in the country. This is a big achievement for Haryana.”

Haryana’s success in reducing AT&C losses is in stark contrast to the overall national trend. The Union Power Ministry report found that the national average AT&C losses have stagnated over the past few years.

“The financial deficit is primarily on account of poor operational performance of discoms… After falling by an average of 0.9% per year over FY 16-FY 19 (from 23.7% to 21.1%), national average AT&C losses in the sector have stagnated over the last three years, at around 21%. The two core components of AT&C losses have only marginally changed. The national average billing efficiency has slightly improved by 0.6% while the national average collection efficiency has slightly declined by 1.2% over the period, from 93.7% to 92.5 %.”

On the other hand, the Haryana officials claim the detection of power theft cases has increased over the years. The official figures suggest the officials of DHBVNL detected 48,729 cases of theft in 2020-21 in comparison to 26,369 cases during 2019-20. In 2020-21, the DHBVNL imposed a penalty of nearly Rs 163 crore on those found indulged in the power theft while this figure was Rs 82 crore for the previous financial year. Similarly, they recovered nearly Rs 83 crore in 2020-21 against the recovery of Rs 54 crore in 2019-20. The officials said they had registered a recovery of 101.46 per cent for the realisation of power bills which means they had recovered some previous dues too in 2020-21. This recovery rate was 99.23 per cent during 2019-20.

Balkar Singh, an IAS officer and a former MD of DHBVNL, said: “Consumers were made aware to pay their dues including the current bill as well as the outstanding bill amount. Apart from this, the electricity bill dues of government departments were also paid and a campaign was launched to cut the connections of the consumers who did not pay the dues of the electricity bill.”

With targeted raids on major players becoming more frequent, the percentage of industries and commercial establishments found to be stealing electricity among the total inspected units has come down from 35 per cent in February 2021 to 15 per cent in July this year.

“If we conduct raids at two industries out of any 10 such units, it sends a message to the owners of the remaining eight too that they can face such checking next time. It prompts them to stop stealing the electricity. We have focused on checking industries and commercial establishments as these are major revenue contributors,” said Chautala.

Explaining the measures taken to improve the functioning of power discoms, the minister further said: “We have been able to bring down the number of those electricity connections which were not functioning properly — it may be because of defunct meters, tempering or closed houses — from earlier 16 per cent to eight per cent now”.

The government has tried to simplify the system as well.

Earlier rules for industry connections mandated full payment of the dues to restore a connection. “We realised that heavy dues can’t be deposited in one go, especially when an industrialist was facing financial constraints. We gave an option to get the electricity connection by depositing just 25 per cent on the spot and the rest in installments,” Chautala explained.

The government now also honours those officials who have helped in revenue collection and those who undertook most raids to curb electricity thefts, he added.

“When the BJP government took over from the Congress, the discoms were in losses. Now we have started registering a profit of crores annually, despite the fact that we provide heavy subsidies to the farmers for tubewells by offering electricity at the rate of 10 paise per unit,” said Chautala.

He said that, as per revenue records, the state has 6,704 villages and the government has been able to provide round-the-clock electricity to 5,620 villages.

“We are number one in the country in rural electrification. We are among leading states in the PM-KUSUM (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan) scheme, which is aimed at providing solar tubewell connections,” he claimed.

Chautala, an independent legislator and son of former Deputy Prime Devi Lal, gives credit to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for “unprecedented development that has taken place in the power sector”.

“Because of our better management, our thermal power plants kept working with 100 per cent capacity even during the recent coal crisis,” he said.

“Today there is a power surplus in the state and uninterrupted power is being supplied to the people in the entire state. Haryana is a leader in the solar energy sector in the country, up to 75 per cent subsidy is also being given by the government to the people of the state for solar energy. Apart from this, soon after covering big canals, solar panels will be installed on them, which will not only save electricity but will also keep the water of the canals clean,” he informed.

Further, in light of the experience during the Russia-Ukraine war and to avoid coal problems in future too, Haryana is examining whether to set up a thermal power plant in Odisha or Haryana’s Yamunanagar.