The UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) appears to be sinking in a dark financial abyss even as it is trying to light up 1.50 crore unelectrified households in the state by providing them electricity connections.

Minutes of a meeting held last month indicate that the government-owned utility’s cash gap – the interval between the date when it pays cash for the power it purchases for distribution and the date it receives payments from customers – is widening due to poor billing recovery in villages as well as cities.

Principal secretary, energy and UPPCL chairman, Alok Kumar, who held a meeting with all the discoms on October 25, has expressed shock over the situation and has given individual targets to the divisions to speed up collection by December or face action.

The minutes released by UPPCL managing director Aparna U states that UPPCL had estimated the total cash gap to be Rs 5,700 crore for the entire financial year 2018-19.

“The actual cash gap, however, has turned out to be Rs 8,000 crore in six months,” it says, adding: “The main reason for this is poor revenue recovery which is only 80% vis-à-vis the target, the poorest being in Lucknow and Varanasi discoms at 76% and 74%, respectively.”

The minutes further state that over 6 lakh consumers in 168 APDRP towns — small towns where accelerated power development is on to strengthen distribution network – have not paid even a single bill since April this year.

The total amount pending against such consumers since April is a whopping Rs 5,708 crore.

The situation was found to be even worse in rural areas where 21.18% of the total 1.15 crore consumers paid their bills in six months since April this year with around 80 per cent of them not paying a single bill.

However, the payment by consumers who were issued bills based on meter reading was found to be better.

According to the minutes, it was found that 45% of the 32 lakh rural consumers who were issued reading-based bills cleared their bills.

According to sources, the UPPCL has outstanding bills of more than Rs 20,000 crore pending for the power it regularly purchases from various generating companies, government as well as private.

The Coal India Ltd also keeps on threatening it to stop supplying coal for the want of regular payment.

“No doubt we face problems in paying for power we purchase for distribution as we face a growing cash gap due to poor bill collection as well as technical losses,” a UPPCL official, who did not wish to be named, said.

It has been found that UP’s aggregate and technical losses (resulting from poor bill collection and theft) are close to 40% which are termed “very high”.

Sources said UPPCL’s cash gap might increase further as it provides electricity connections to remaining one crore rural households unless it was able to take some radical measures to improve the situation.

UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad chairman Awadhesh Kumar Verma said UPPCL, and not the consumers, were to be blamed for the mess. “The high tariff in UP also demotivates many consumers to pay bills regularly,” he said.

First Published: Nov 15, 2018 09:47 IST