Chhattisgarh is included among 11 DISCOMs in the country which have pre-paid their total outstanding loan amounting to Rs 42,700 crore till date under ‘Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana’ (UDAY) scheme, officials informed.

The other States are —Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The Union Ministry of Power launched a scheme ‘Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana’ (UDAY) for achieving financial turnaround of the DISCOMs which are reeling under burden of heavy debt and losses.

The Government of Chhattisgarh has committed to the Union Ministry of Power  to improve the power supply billing efficiency from 79.27% in financial year 2016-17 to 85.28% in 2019-20, officials informed.

Similarly, the gap between Average Cost of Supply (ACS) and Average Revenue Realisation (ARR) of Rs 0.35 per unit in FY15 would also be eliminated.

The State  would extend a graded Operational Funding Requirement (OFR) support of Rs 450 crore in FY16 and Rs 350 crore in FY17, to CSPDCl, to ensure smooth cash flow, till the DISCOM achieves turnaround.

The Central Government would provide incentives to the DISCOMs and the State Government, aimed at improving Power infrastructure growth in the State and lowering the cost of power.

The State of Chhattisgarh would get additional/priority funding through the Central schemes such as DDUGJY, IPDS, Power Sector Development Fund or such other schemes of MOP and MNRE, if they meet the operational milestones outlined in the scheme.

With the financial turnaround through financial and operational efficiencies, the DISCOM rating would improve, thereby reducing their Cost of Borrowing for future capital investment requirement for sustainable operational improvements.

Notably, the Chhattisgarh Government is targetting 100 per cent household electrification by financial year 2017-18.

As on March 2015, Chhattisgarh had 63.6 households with electrification rate of 84.5 per cent, officials informed.

The State Government is attaching highest priority to power sector and is committed to provide full support to all utilities for ensuring quality power supply, officials informed.

Chhattisgarh is expected to add 14,140 MW of additional power generation capacity in its thermal plants between November 2015 to March 2022,  according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) in its perspective transmission plan report prepared for 20 years ( 2014-34).

The objective of the plan is to present broad outlines of the requirement of additional transmission system in the Indian grid during the next two decades.

The National Electricity Plan is under preparation u/S 3(4) of the Electricity Act 2003. This Plan would inter-alia give generation capacity addition for period up to 2021-22  based on integrated resource planning requirements for the country.

In the absence of the generation addition programme for 13th Plan period, an estimate was made considering the ongoing and likely capacity addition for the conventional generation projects.

Major high capacity transmission corridors have already been planned and which are under implementation would be sufficient to meet import /export of power among various regions in the year 2021-22.

This is based on the assumptions of load growth and generation capacity addition.

Initially, the High Capacity Corridors from Chhattisgarh and Odisha were planned with reduced reliability due to uncertainties in generation addition by IPPs. The generations which were associated with these high capacity corridors are coming up in phased manner and till now no major constraint is being faced.

However, with the coming up of more generations, additional transmission strengthening may be required to meet the reliability criteria.

This would be taken up with firm status of new generation projects.

The State currently also has total renewable energy potential of 4,500 MW which includes solar (grid connected and roof top), wind biomass and small hydro.

It has also planned to install solar powered pump sets for agriculture consumers which will benefit 16,000 consumers.

It may be recalled that there are significantly more number of villages which are to be electrified in Chhattisgarh using the off-grid (solar) mode than the grid-based (conventional power supply.

The State has also launched a ‘Solar Community Irrigation Project’ for drawing water extracted using solar pumps for supplying to the agricultural land of farmers across the State.

The Central Government has released Rs 12 lakh each for Raipur and Bilaspur for the Solar City project, officials informed.

The total sanctioned funds for the two cities is Rs 43 lakh each.

A total amount of Rs 67.01 crore has been sanctioned for preparation of master plans, solar city cells, promotional activities and installation of renewable energy projects and an amount of Rs 24.16 crore has been released, so far, under Solar City Programme.

Out of 7 identified solar cities in Maharashtra, an amount of Rs 7.74 crore has been sanctioned and an amount of Rs 3.04 crore has been released for 6 solar cities.

Chhattisgarh will procure additional power from renewable energy sources to the tune of approximately 700 MW by FY18, officials informed.

With this the average power purchase cost for Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Company ltd (CSPDCl) based on the above power availability will increase from Rs 2.58 per kWh in FY 2015-16 to Rs 3.12 per kWh in FY 2018, they informed.

The rates have been derived based on cost of power at existing rates and considering  no escalation in power purchase cost since it is passing through for the distribution company.