AP govt claims it owes no dues to power generators

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday maintained that it owed no money to the power generators for electricity purchased through the power exchanges.

 Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO), a Government of India enterprise, has asked three power exchanges -- IEX, PXIL and HPX -- to restrict electricity trading by 27 discoms in 13 states having outstanding dues towards gencos.

AP was listed as one of the states that had outstanding amount to the gencos.

 AP Special Chief Secretary (Energy) K Vijayanand clarified here on Friday that the state power distribution companies did not owe any money to the gencos.

“We have cleared all the Rs 350 crore due. It was only due to a communication gap that AP was probably showing as having an overdue,” Vijayanand said.

Over the past few months, the state has been purchasing about 40 million units of electricity per day through the power exchanges for meeting its needs, AP Transco sources said.

The overall electricity demand in the state is about 180-190 million units per day but there has been a shortfall of about 40-45 million units. To tide over this, the state has been regularly purchasingpower through the exchanges.

With the POSOCO imposing restrictions on electricity trading, the state may find it difficult to procure required power to overcome the shortage.

“We are taking up the issue with POSOCO to clear the misunderstanding. As of now we have no overdue to be cleared, so there should not be a problem in purchasing power from the exchanges,” a senior Energy Department official said.