Encouraging result of Power sector Privatisation in Delhi: Minister

New Delhi, July 31 (UNI) The privatisation of the distribution sector in Delhi has shown very encouraging results with 12 per cent reduction in aggregate technical and commercial loss achieved during the first four years, as against the target of 17 per cent in the first five year period.

Other parameters like response time to attend faults have also shown an encouraging trend, Union Minister for power Sushilkumar Shinde said in reply to a question by Samajwadi Party's Jaya Bachchan in the Rajya Sabha today.

The overall power supply position in the National capital has also shown an improvement over the years and peak shortage reduced from 1.9 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively at the beginning of the tenth plan (2002-03) to 1.5 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively in the year 2005-2006, the Minister said.

Mr Shinde said the instances of increased power shortage during certain periods in peak summer and peak winter occurred due to demand for power increasing significantly or availability of power getting reduced due to higher forced outage of generating units or reduced hydro availability.

In reply to another question by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi of the BJP and Ram Jethmalani (Independent), the Minister said the power distribution companies had been able to reduce the Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT and C) losses more than the target fixed by the Delhi Government at the time of privatisation.

For example, while the NDPL had reduced AT and C losses by 40.85 per cent in 2004-05 against a target of 33.79 per cent fixed by the government, the BRPL had reduced losses by 42.7 per cent last year against a target of 40.64 per cent.

UNI AR MSJ BD1804