Dues from industries are close to Rs 900 crore, while agriculture accounted for Rs 800 crore. Arrears from the domestic and water supply segments are around Rs 400 each. The Krishi Mitra scheme had yielded Rs 150 crore recoveries and the another Rs 50 crore is being targeted. "It is quite a breakthrough because no payments were coming in," Basak said at a Confederation of Indian Industry meeting on Tuesday.

Deputy Chief Minister and Energy Minister Gopinath Munde said there was no move to scrap captive power plants (CPP) in the state. Although the MSEB had mooted such a proposal, it was still under consideration by the government, he clarified.

He said the government would arrive at a decision on the CPP policy only after meeting withindustrialists and considering their views on the matter. "Until such time there will be no bar on setting up CPPs," he added. The government had cleared applications for setting up 1516 mw of captive power in the state, but only over 500 mw was actually implemented.

On reducing transmission and distribution losses, Munde said the government had initiated a Rs 1025 project to upgrade and modernise the distribution network in 16 districts of the state. The MSEB had been allowed to float debentures to raise Rs 500 crore for part funding the two-year project, he said.

Regarding demands from the industry to privatise distribution and transmission, Basak said a feasibility study had been conducted in Navi Mumbai. However, the proposal for a joint venture with a private party for transmission and distribution had met with lukewarm response, he said. To keep track of thefts and losses, the government had initiated energy audit in 17 industrial towns of the state. " We will take further steps to tackle therecovery problem based on our findings in these programmes," he said.

Munde said the government was committed to reduce the burden on industry due to cross subsidisation. He said tariffs would come down if more power was generated from the hydel sector. Currently only 10 per cent of power was from this sector. The government was targeting 2000 MW of hydroelectric generating capacity in the state to remedy the situation and bring down tariffs, he added.

MSEB has written off Rs 125 crore as bad debts from the total arrears of over Rs 2,500 crore during the last fiscal. The board, it may be recalled, was planning to write off around Rs 390 crore. Depending on its performance for the year, the board can waive a part of its accumulated arrears. Each year, in its planned budget outlay, it also sets a provisional limit for itself for such leverage and finalises the amount at the end of the financial year.