Power companies, ageing plants come under the radar

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) took on the Capital’s electricity generating companies controlled by the Delhi government, criticising them for being unable to run power plants to their full capacity.

The CAG said deficiencies in the functioning of the power generation companies that had been brought out in the previous audit report continued to persist.

The report said the financial position of the companies was adversely affected by the continued increase in the pending dues, mainly from the distribution companies.

“Due to (an) outstanding (amount) of ₹4,911.07 crore from discoms against energy bills, IPGCL and PPCL (the two state generating companies, Indraprastha Power Generation Company Limited and Pragati Power Corporation Limited) have become dependent on borrowings and are drifting towards liquidity crunch. Low operational efficiency translated into high unit cost of power, which led to low purchase of power by discoms from these companies,” the audit report stated.

It said the companies had to pay a penal interest of ₹132.63 crore as they failed to timely repay loans and interest.

“Resultantly, about 10% to 68% generating capacities of the power plants of IPGCL and PPCl remained underutilised each year. The companies could not fully implement its planned capacity addition programmes,” the CAG said.

Besides, delayed commissioning of the gas-based power plant in Bawana resulted in under recovery of the capital cost in tariff.

The report said as these plants are ageing, they are increasingly consuming much more fuel than prescribed norms.

“The deteriorating station heat rates of the plants were causing excess consumption of fuel. The power plants failed to achieve targeted plant availability, resulting in under-recovery of capacity charges while the auxiliary energy consumption of RPH (Rajghat power house), GTPS (gas turbine power station) and PPS-III (Bawana plant) was higher than the norms,” the report added.