PDC failed to recover Rs 1,041.28 crore power bills, says CAG

PDC failed to recover Rs 1,041.28 crore power bills, says CAG
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 9
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has pulled up the state-owned J&K Power Development Corporation (PDC) Limited for its failure to recover outstanding bills of Rs 1,041.28 crore.

The PDC sells electricity to the Power Development Department (PDD), which failed to make payments for the power purchased and thus the outstanding power bills rose to Rs 1,041.28 crore, stated the CAG in its report for the year ended March 31, 2010.

“An ineffective system of recovering dues from the PDD led to the outstanding bills of Rs 1,041.28 crore and forced the PDC to depend on loans. Against the power bills of Rs 1,267.71 crore, the PDD paid Rs 476.96 crore only during 2005-10,” added the report.

The perusal of government documents revealed that the PDC also failed to assess the actual requirement of manpower for the operation of its powerhouses. “Despite training its employees, the PDC failed to manage the operations and maintenance of the Baglihar Hydroelectric Project, which had to be outsourced to the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC),” it said.

The PDC also failed to evaluate the demand and supply position of electricity in the state. “The PDC did not devise a proper management information system to evaluate the demand and supply position of electricity to take timely policy decisions regarding capacity addition,” said the report.

The peak power demand in the state had increased from 1,800 MW to 2,247 MW and the deficit in meeting the peak demand ranged between 31 per cent and 37 per cent during the review period. It added that against the proposed power supply of 10,790.53 MU in respect of hydroelectric projects, the actual generation was 7,979.31 MU in 2009-10.

In its recommendations to the PDC, the CAG said the timely commissioning of power projects could have enabled it to increase power generation. “There were cost and time overruns in four projects. The time overrun ranged from four to 16 years and the cost overrun between 41 per cent and 687 per cent,” it added.