25.11.08

Maha Vitaran plans Rs 3,192-cr infra boost

Maha Vitaran, the distribution wing of the state power utility, will soon issue orders for infrastructure works worth Rs 3,192 crore. Maha Vitaran’s managing director Ajay Bhushan Pandey told media persons that the utility had tied up almost 85% of debt for the infrastructure upgrade programme. The programme has an outlay of Rs 8,918 crore and Maha Vitaran is in the process of awarding contracts for works worth Rs 5,826 crore. Mr Pandey said work orders for the first phase involving Rs 3,192 crore will be issued in December. This is the largest capital investment Maha Vitaran will be making in infrastructure upgrade since the erstwhile Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) was bifurcated into four separate companies in 2005. In 2008-09, Maha Vitaran has projected an expenditure of Rs 4,424 crore on capital works. Mr Pandey said the utility had raised 80% of the funds for the current fiscal’s capital works and the rest would come from the state government as equity contribution. In addition, Maha Vitaran will also invest a large chunk of Rs 117 crore profit it made in 2007-08 into infrastructure works, he added. The infrastructure upgrade programme comprises 119 different schemes including construction of 565 substations of 33 kilo volts each. Mr Pandey pointed out that as an independent company Maha Vitaran has gone from losses to profit in just three years. This has happened because of a drastic reduction in transmission, distribution and commercial losses, check on power theft, and an energy accounting system put in place to identify highloss making circles, he said. In 2005-06, the company registered a loss of Rs 303 crore that was reduced to Rs 134 crore the following fiscal. But in the previous year, Maha Vitaran closed the books with a profit of Rs 117 crore. These measures have helped Maha Vitaran increase its revenue from Rs 1,100 crore per month in 2005 to Rs 1,500-1,650 crore in the current fiscal. In fact, the utility mopped up Rs 1,877 crore, a record earning, in October 2008, Mr Pandey said. Asked if the economic and industrial slowdown had reflected in consumption of power and thereby revenue, Mr Pandey said the real impact could be known by January 2008.

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