7 months ago
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The authorities departments crossed Karnataka beryllium the State energy proviso companies a whopping ₹10,342.13 crore successful unpaid powerfulness bills, with Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom) unsocial accounting for astir fractional the dues astatine ₹5,221.16 crore.
As of July 31, the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department, Urban Development Department (UDD) and the Major Irrigation Department, unneurotic lend astir 93% of the full arrears.
Largest defaulter
RDPR, specifically, is the azygous largest defaulter, accounting for ₹5,588.33 crore, oregon astir 54% of the full dues. The UDD follows with ₹2,434.91 crore and the Major Irrigation Department owes ₹1,570.06 crore.
Apart from Bescom, which serves Bengaluru and adjacent areas and carries the largest stock of unpaid bills, different Escoms person smaller exposures – Hubli Electricity Supply Company Limited (Hescom) astatine ₹1,833.53 crore, Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company Limited (Gescom) astatine ₹1,710.81 crore, Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Company Limited (CESC) beryllium ₹937.70 crore, Mangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Mescom) astatine ₹614.75 crore, and Hukkeri dues astatine ₹24.18 crore.
How it accumulated
A person look astatine department-level balances explains however the arrears person accumulated.
For RDPR, the unpaid equilibrium astatine the commencement of April this twelvemonth was ₹4,795.63 crore. Between April and July, the section received caller energy bills of ₹966.84 crore but made payments of lone ₹174.15 crore, leaving a closing equilibrium of ₹5,588.32 crore. The UDD owed ₹2,271.51 crore astatine the opening of April. After caller bills of ₹962.04 crore were raised and ₹798.65 crore was collected, the closing arrears stood astatine ₹2,434.91 crore. The Major Irrigation Department besides added to the liabilities, from an opening equilibrium of ₹1,352.72 crore, caller bills of ₹281.11 crore were generated, payments of ₹63.78 crore were made, leaving ₹1,570.04 crore unpaid.
Other departments person smaller outstanding dues. Commerce and Industry beryllium ₹339.60 crore, Minor Irrigation ₹143.74 crore, Roads, Buildings and Slum Development ₹102.59 crore, and different authorities departments unneurotic beryllium ₹162.90 crore.
From the Escom perspective, Bescom’s vulnerability (the magnitude of wealth the Escom is astatine hazard of not receiving) is dominated by RDPR and UDD, which unneurotic marque up much than 90% of its full dues. Hescom is mostly owed by Major Irrigation and RDPR, Gescom’s dues are mostly from RDPR, portion CESC and Mescom person smaller but important concentrations successful RDPR and Commerce and Industry.
Paying successful advance
The increasing arrears besides bring up a cardinal regularisation meant to forestall precisely this situation, M.G. Prabhakar, erstwhile advisory member, KERC said, explaining that according to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (Manner of Payment of Subsidy by State government) Regulations, 2008, powerfulness companies indispensable proviso energy astatine subsidised rates to definite groups similar farmers, agrarian households oregon government-run schemes, lone if the State authorities pays the subsidy successful advance.
“The regularisation intelligibly says that the subsidy wealth should beryllium released for each 4th of the fiscal year. However, these payments are often delayed. When subsidies oregon measure payments from authorities departments don’t travel connected time, the energy companies are near abbreviated of funds. This adds to their fiscal strain, adjacent though the regularisation was meant to guarantee a dependable travel of money,” Mr. Prabhakar added.
Power generating firms
According to the latest information from the Union government’s PRAAPTI portal, Karnataka’s energy proviso companies arsenic of October 4, beryllium ₹4,239.08 crore to powerfulness generating firms, of which ₹2,122.04 crore is overdue. Experts judge that delays successful payments from authorities departments person created a ripple effect leaving Escoms abbreviated of currency to settee their ain dues connected time.
Bescom officials, however, were not disposable for comments.
