Our Bureau

Hyderabad , June 12

The Andhra Pradesh power sector has been assigned "First rank" for its overall performance in 2005-06 in the Crisil rating exercise commissioned by the Ministry of Power, Government of India.

For the third time, the State has been awarded top rank, following it up in FY 2003, 2005 and 2006. The rating is based on the performance of the power utilities. All utilities are in profit and the tariffs for consumers have not been increased. In fact, high-tension industrial consumer tariffs are lower and the tariff subsidy from the Government is decreasing, an official press release said.

Massive reduction in T&D losses (at 20.1 per cent) by the end of 2005-06 was mainly responsible. During the rating exercise, AP utilities scored due to reduction in aggregate technical and commercial losses, improved cash coverage of costs, generation PLF, availability of transmission lines, employee productivity and timely debt servicing of loans.

The State Government will be presented with the award on July 13 in New Delhi, the release said.

The benefits of the power sector reforms is being felt directly by the consumers, including one crore rural and 20.04 lakh agriculture consumers.

During 2005-06, AT&C losses were reduced to 18.79 per cent in 2005-06. Around Rs 1,300 crore was invested in rural development out of Rs 2,013 crore in 2005-06.

The industrial sector witnessed 23.4 per cent growth and the revenue reached Rs 11,857 crore during 2005-06. The benefits of improved efficiencies were passed on to the consumers by keeping domestic power tariffs constant in spite of inflationary cost increases in establishment costs and fuel prices.

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