The Hindu : National : Andhra Pradesh rated best in power sector

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Wednesday, Jun 14, 2006

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National

Andhra Pradesh rated best in power sector

Special Correspondent

Report places Gujarat, Delhi in the second and third places

New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh was rated the best performing State in the power sector in 2005-06, followed by Gujarat and Delhi, according to a report prepared by credit rating agencies ICRA and Crisil.

The report, released here on Tuesday by Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, expresses concern over the continuing aggregate technical and commercial losses of State power utilities, an area in which Tamil Nadu and Goa are the lowest at 20 per cent.

The report prepared at the behest of the Power Ministry to evaluate the performance of the State utilities during 2005-06 took into account the issues of progress in reforms, free power and subsidy, establishment of regulatory commissions, reduction in transmission and distribution losses and revenue collections.

The States which have improved their rankings compared to last year's report are Maharashtra, which has been ranked eighth as against 12th, and West Bengal, which has leaped to the fifth position from eighth. Karnataka has remained in the same fourth position as last year. Tamil Nadu, in contrast has fallen from the fifth position last year to tenth, while Chhattisgarh has slipped from tenth to 14th, Uttar Pradesh from 9th to 18th and Haryana from the 14th to 19th rank.

On restructuring of Electricity Boards, the report said Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar and Chhattisgarh were yet to unbundle their SEBs. Even in the States where the SEBs have been unbundled into separate entities, distribution companies have been given very limited autonomy in functional and financial matters.

Mr. Shinde said a proposal was being considered to provide cash incentives from next year to States whose power utilities achieved the highest performance rating. He presented trophies to representatives of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi based on the performance of their power utilities during 2005-06.

He pointed out that since these awards were instituted, there had been considerable improvement in the performance of States. Now, the northeastern States were also clearly in the race. The rating system was meant to give importance to distribution reforms in the power sector with the aim of making it perform efficiently and contribute significantly to economic growth.

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