Five discoms failed to clear dues worth Rs 4,112 cr: CAG

Five power utilities, including national capital’s BRPL and BYPL, “consistently failed” to clear dues worth over Rs 4,112 crore to three hydro power producers at the end of March 2015, CAG said on Monday.

“Outstanding dues of five beneficiaries (BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, BSES Yamuna Power Limited, Uttar Pradesh Power Company Limited, Power Distribution Department, J&K and Bihar State Electricity Board) which consistently failed to clear dues of NHPC, SJVN and THDC accumulated to Rs 4,112.49 crore at the end 2014-15 against Rs 397.95 crore at the end of 2009-10,” CAG said in its report.

The audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on ‘NHPC Ltd, SJVN Ltd, THDC India Ltd and NHDC Ltd’ was tabled in Parliament on Monday.

“CPSEs (Central Public Sector Enterprises) relaxed the implementation of provisions of payment security mechanism as LCs were either not obtained for required amount or were not used as a means of payment security and power of defaulting beneficiaries was not regulated timely. This led to accumulation of dues,” it said.

One of the main objectives of hydro central pubic sector enterprises (CPSEs) was to operate and maintain power station with maximum efficiency.

“However, the average Capacity Utilisation Factor (CUF) of four power stations of NHPC were below their respective Design CUFs and THDC has not so far been permitted to fill the reservoir up to Full Reservoir Level of EL 830 m,” it said.

Design Energy of Chamera-I power station of NHPC has not been reviewed though it has consistently been generating substantial secondary energy since its commissioning in 1994-95.

“Against the operational norms for hydro power stations fixed by CERC requiring machines to be available for 24 hours during monsoon, the machines of CPSEs suffered forced outages aggregating 9,871 hours during monsoon periods of 2009-14,” it said.

Substantial damages occurred to Dhauliganga and Tanakpur power stations during floods of June 2013 which were possible to have been mitigated by compliance to the provisions of reservoir operation manual/barrage regulation rules and disaster management plan, it added.