As part of its efforts to improve the precarious finances of Discoms, the Andhra Pradesh government released ₹17,904 crore in 2019-20 towards clearing their subsidy arrears.
Of the subsidy arrears of ₹13,391 crore pending as on March 31, 2019, the government released ₹8,655 crore in 2019-20 and ₹9,249 crore towards subsidy announced in 2019-20 and other charges, according to an official release.
The government also released ₹20,384 crore to the Discoms for clearing the power generator bills which are pending as on March 31, 2019. The total bills cleared by the Discoms stand at ₹34,384 crore during the year (2019-20).
Huge savings
Meanwhile, the government’s focus on cost-effective power helped the utilities in saving around ₹700 crore by procuring low-cost power in the open market.
The government asked power utilities to fully focus on providing 9-hour free power during day time to all 18.50 lakh agriculture services by the beginning of the rabi season.
It also released ₹1,700 crore for improving power supply infrastructure, including new substations and modernisation of lines.
Supply to farm sector
Energy Minister Balineni Srinivasa Reddy instructed top officials of the power utilities to concentrate on supplying power to the farm sector for nine hours during the day.
At a high-level review meeting, Energy Secretary N. Srikant said the power utilities were able to reduce total Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses to 13.36% in 2019-20 and the aggregate Revenue Realised – Average Cost of Service gap has come down to ₹1.45 per unit (₹8,120 crore) in 2020 from ₹2.26 (₹12,325 crore) in 2019.
Efforts were under way to complete the targeted 10,000 MW of solar energy capacity addition in the next couple of years.