Bihar State Electricity Board headquarters

Patna, Sept. 13: The Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) is facing two challenges and is not being able to overcome either.

The board is already struggling to meet the increasing power demand in the state. Now, BSEB’s official record shows the board is losing revenue at a rate of 37 per cent on account of aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) loss, which includes deficit incurred during of transmission, distribution and due to power theft.

Officials of the board, entrusted with the job of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the state, said that 50 per cent of consumers are being billed on fixed rates. This has also affected revenue collection but it is very difficult to compute the accurate losses incurred by the board.

Asked what steps the BSEB intends to take to streamline the system, board spokesman H.R. Pandey said: “We have formed a special task force for the purpose. It would conduct raids on a regular basis and check meters. Defaulters would be fined.” He, however, refused to divulge the details about the percentage of theft cases and transmission and distribution (T&D) losses.

The official record of BSEB, too, mentions that the board does not have proper system to evaluate T&D losses. However, as per the annual accounts figures, the board has incurred losses up to 42.61 per cent in 2007, about 39.06 per cent in 2008 and 38.007 per cent in 2009. The T&D loss for 2010 is around 35 per cent.

Out of 24.84 lakh consumers in the state, almost 88 per cent come under the domestic sector. The board’s net deficit for the financial year 2010-11 stands at Rs 578.65 crore after including government’s grant of Rs 90 crore per month.

Earlier the government was giving Rs 60 crore per month to meet part of BSEB’s resource gap. The board’s projected revenue income on existing tariff for 2010-11 is Rs 2529.40 crore, whereas Rs 172 crore is expected to accrue on account of non-tariff income, including meter rent, late payment surcharge, miscellaneous charges, miscellaneous receipts etc.

Its aggregate revenue requirement for the current fiscal stands at Rs 4,370 crore, out of which it would spend Rs 2,848.86 crore on purchase of power. However, the BSEB’s decision to postpone the fuel-surcharge, which it had imposed with retrospective effect from October 2008 to September 2009 on industrial consumers, would not have any impact on the its revenue as the government will compensate it for the loss of Rs 30 crore per month.