Missed the target by 18820, but achieved a lot

Yes, the deadline for providing electricity to every household under “Saubhagya” scheme has ended on March 31. The scheme has helped the country in changing the tag of a “country with the largest population without access to electricity” to that of “almost” electrified.

Key takeaways from the scheme

1.      Total houses electrified as on March 31, 2019, under the scheme are 2.60 Crore as against the target of 2.48 Crore. 

2.      Despite being seen an unrealistic task at earlier stages of the scheme, govt and discoms have managed to achieve the target.

3.      As a surprise, Uttar Pradesh with most un-electrified houses had achieved 100% household electrified on December 31, 2018. Around 79.8 lakhs of the houses were electrified.

4.      The month of Oct 2018 saw the maximum number of household electrification, with more than 33 lakhs houses electrified in that month.

5.      All the remaining houses without electricity are in Chhattisgarh and mostly affected by the Left Wing extremism.

Now, what should be the next step in this regard.

First of all, there is a need to continue with door-to-door verification of household connection by discoms as well as verification/ audit of the scheme by some third party agencies to ensure that no one is left behind in this regard. Power Ministry has also come up with a toll-free number 1800-121-5555 to resolve queries and grievances on household electrification.

For any resource to be used by humankind, the resource should be available, accessible and affordable. So, electricity is accessible, but not available and affordable.

The next step of every state is to look forward to providing quality and reliable power (“available”) to the consumer at “affordable” prices. 24x7 Power to all should be the new target with the least possible tariff.

From here on wards, we believe that role and responsibility of State govts and State Electricity Regulatory Commission will increase and they have to guide the sector to bring it out from a loss making vertical to a profitable business. Power distribution is the backbone of the whole power sector and this new demand and consumers are the chance to help the sector to grow again. As of now discoms and the states have the excuse that they have high losses due to un-electrified and un-metered areas. But now since every household is connected to the grid and metered too (hopefully), it is the duty of Discom to act seriously and focus on reducing the losses and to provide quality service with better consumer services.

Any negligence by Discom right now in collecting bills and checking power theft will prove more disastrous than discoms having un-electrified areas and houses in their area of supply.

It is also the right time for states to focus on making the power distribution sector more self-dependent instead of making them dependent on state subsidies. As most of the new consumers are from agricultural and BPL category, the providing subsidy to these will ultimately burden state exchequer in future. Electricity act and National Tariff policy have the concept of cross-subsidy to subsidize certain consumer categories and envisaging some measures to reduce this cross-subsidy, but every political party, in order to gain political benefit, have provided a huge chunk of subsidy to certain consumer categories which are indirectly hampering the financials of Discoms (as most of the time discoms are struggling to get the subsidy even after the end of the year as against the provision of getting them before the start of the year) and giving a loophole to discoms in which they club their inefficiency and losses into such subsidies in form of high sales projections

We strongly believe that if people and Commission want discoms and gencos to follow all rules strictly then consumers must also follow the rules strictly. Consumers should not take advantage of political gimmicks and should not avail waiver from the penalties for late payment or for not paying off bills or penalty on power theft as far as possible. Actually they should condemn use of such a political tool. Such waiver is penalty on the honest consumers and a financial loss to discom. Basically it is incentive for a consumer not to pay bills months before election.

Hope, from the past experience and struggles, discoms, Commission and State govt. will learn and move in the right direction which will help consumers by providing quality and affordable power and also sector by strict milestones and rules which will provide a strong fundamental to the sector.

If it is “Saubghaya” for consumers to get connected to the grid then discom must also feel “Saubhagya” to serve the consumers with quality and affordable power to every consumer, irrespective of consumer category to which they belong, along with getting their financial condition sound instead of "Durbhagya" by adding more revenue gap.