The Ministry of Power (MoP) has released the Tenth Annual Integrated Rating and Ranking of Power Distribution Utilities during the review planning and monitoring (RPM) meeting with states and state power utilities held on August 05, 2022.
Integrated rating exercise is being carried out annually since 2012 with the aim of evaluating performance of utilities on a range of parameters covering financial sustainability, performance excellence and external environment and their ability to sustain improvements year over year. The methodology for the rating has been comprehensively reviewed and revised in the current rating exercise. The scope of the integrated rating exercise has been broadened which now covers 71 utilities including state discoms, private discoms and power departments (PDs) spread across the entire country. The rating now lays a higher emphasis on financial performance, while also assessing operational efficiencies and external ecosystem of discoms. The rating will now be dynamic in nature based on triggers having impact on discom financials.
- A total of 12 discoms have made it to A+ grade, including six state-run utilities from Gujarat (4), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1) and Haryana (1) and six private utiities from Gujarat (2), Maharashtra (2), Uttar Pradesh (1) and West Bengal (1). The private utilities included Torrent Power’s Ahmedabad and Surat utilities, Adani Group’s Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited and Tata Power Mumbai Limited (TPML), Uttar Pradesh’s Noida Power Company Limited and West Bengal’s India Power Corporation Limited (IPCL).
- Out of 71 utilities, 26 (including power departments) have aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses of less than 15 per cent in 2020-21 as compared to 21 utilities in the previous year. Notably, AT&C losses between 2019-21 have broadly remained unchanged over the last three years, at about 21 per cent.
- 31 utilities out of 52 (excluding newly formed utilities and PDs) have reduced AT&C Losses in 2020-21 as compared to 2018-19. Out of these, 8 utilities have improved AT&C losses by more than 5 per cent, while 17 utilities have improved AT&C losses between 1per cent to 5 per cent.
- 17 utilities improved their cash adjusted ACS-ARR gap performance over 2019–21.
- Average billing efficiency for 2020-21 was around 84 per cent. Meanwhile, average collection efficiency for 2020-21 was around 92.5 per cent which was adversely impacted by Covid-19 pandemic situation.
- Total 14 utilities scored greater than 10 out of 13 on the performance excellence that included parameters like billing efficiency, collection efficiency, corporate governance, and distribution loss -SERC approved. The top 5 among them were Uttar Gujarat Vij Company Limited (UGVCL), Torrent Power Ahmedabad, TPML, IPCL, and Dakshin Gujarat Vij Company Limited (DGVCL).
- The report findings also showed that state utilities of Gujarat and Haryana, and private discoms had taken certain innovative measures to improve overall financial and operational performance.
Read the Tenth Annual Integrated Rating and Ranking of Power Distribution Utilities by MoP here