Engineers give tips to cut transmission losses
Tribune News Service

Ambala, December 9
In an attempt to help the state power utilities to tide over the financial crisis, power engineers have come up with several suggestions to bring down the aggregate transmission and commercial losses (A&TC).

V K Gupta, Secretary Finance of the North Indian Power Engineers Federation (NIPEF), says that inhouse reforms are needed in the power sector. He said engineers had suggested that by strengthening the transmission system, upgrading of transformers as per the load requirements and by shifting of consumer meters outside their premises, the A&TC losses on rural feeders could be reduced from 50 to 55 per cent to 20 to 25 per cent while in the cities the same could be brought down to 8 10 per cent.

He said that the state discoms were paying more for the power while the average tariffs were low. The revenue realised was also an issue which affected the financial health of the power companies in Haryana.

He said the move of the state government to hand over 80 feeders comprising four feeders from each circle to private franchisee to bring down AT&C losses was unlikely to prove beneficial as losses in the rural feeders range between 35 and 50 per cent due to rampant power theft. He said bringing down the transmission losses could be made effective departmentally if the engineers were provided with administrative support to go ahead with the reforms. He said the transmission line losses were effectively reduced in the neighbouring Punjab, where the engineers with the support of the state government and power utility, brought down the AT&C losses in Patiala from 23 to 24 per cent to 17 per cent in two years.

The total expenditure incurred on this project was Rs 16 crore and it saved 233 lakh units by way of reduction in losses. He said that this model could be replicated in Haryana.