Khemka: Discoms passing off power theft as sale to farmers

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 24

Senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka has alleged that power distribution companies in the state are passing off power theft as power sale to farmers.

In a letter, dated February 2 to the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Power and ACS, Finance, Khemka said the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) “has been admitting inflated claims” of distribution companies for agriculture pumpset (AP) sales to farmers, burdening the public with huge subsidies.

“This public fraud is unfortunately not contested by the government before the HERC. The great fudge enables the discoms to claim over 9,200 MU as total AP sales and receive rural energy (RE) subsidy of Rs 6,900 crore from the government without murmur, helping discoms to pad off power theft as sales to farmers,” he added.

He claimed that the average aggregate transmission and distribution (T&D) losses of the two discoms after accounting for AP sales are 19 per cent. “If the AP sales are properly metered and accounted for at the farmer’s end, the true T&D losses of the discoms may be closer to 40 per cent.”

He added in 2007-08, the discoms were claiming RE subsidy for 5,639 MU, which in the span of 12 years had risen steadily by 65 per cent to over 9,200 MU, without any change in either the gross cropped area or the cropping pattern.

He said if the connected tubewell load of 7,500 MW was consuming 9,200 MU during the year was correct then tubewell were operational for 1,230 hours, which was an impossibility,” he said. He suggested direct payment of water subsidy to farmers instead of subsidising discoms.

The ACS, Power, PK Das, said, “We have an elaborate energy audit of agriculture feeders. If Khemka has some issues, we will look into it.”