CHANDIGARH, April 10: The Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB), which has been burdened heavily because of its policy of providing free electricity to the farm sector, has been operating at a loss for the past many years. This was stated in the recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), which revealed that the Board suffered a whopping loss of Rs 3354.20 crore during the five-year period from 1992-93 to 1996-97 because of the lower tariff rates for agricultural consumers.However, the board has sought to gloss over the loss by cross-subsidising Rs 1297.54 crore it fixed higher tariffs for other categories of consumers while another Rs 2015.43 crore was adjusted as rural electrification subsidy.
According to the CAG report, for every unit of electricity sold by the Board, it lost 31.82 paise during 1992-93, 32.37 paise during 1993-94, 26.32 paise during 1994-95, 19.66 paise during the following year and 16.41 paise during 1996-97. A loss of Rs 1110.11 crore was further causedduring the period under review as 10,483 million units escaped billing for the ostensible reason that these were accounted in unmetered agricultural consumption, the CAG observed.
The Board also ``inflated'' the actual power utilisation in this sector by over two and a half times by erroneously adding use of oversize motors, use of motors during single phase supply and excessive light load on tubewells. This, according to CAG, ``lacked justification as the same was already included in the consumption worked out on the basis of meters installed on representative meters.''
Despite being in the red, the Board had been lax in curbing pilferage of power and realising its dues from the consumers over the years, says the report.
It checked only 11 per cent of the connections during 1992-93, while during 1994-95, only 12 per cent of the connections were checked against theft of power. Only 17 per cent checks were made during 1995-96 and 26 per cent during 1996-97.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
