Line losses rise 6% points, Etawah tops with 86%

LUCKNOW: Even as UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) has proposed around 20% increase in power tariff, data of the power utility shows that it failed to control line losses, and they rather increased by six percentage points in the period from April 2018 to April 2019.
As per the UPPCL data accessed by TOI, the Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses, essentially because of power theft, were 38.88% in April 2018 but rose to over 45% in a year.

Etawah topped with 86% line losses, while Banda was second with 79% losses.
The line losses in Agra, Aligarh, Kanpur, Jhansi and Banda divisions under Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (DVVNL) jumped from 40.19% in April 2018 to 51%. Among them, in Banda line losses rose sharply from 47% to 79%, while they shot up in Jhansi from 50% to over 67%. In Kanpur division, the line losses swelled from 49% in April 2018 to over 54%.
Significantly, the Kanpur division also covers Etawah, the home town of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav where line losses soared from 62% to 86%. Poorvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (PVVNL) covering divisions like Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Basti, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Azamgarh registered rise in line losses from 40.44% in April 2018 to more than 45%.
Gorakhpur division was the sole one where line losses declined from 43% to 40%, though Kauriram block saw rise from 40% to 64% and Gorakhpur city from 20% to 32%.
Line losses also mounted in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of PM Narendra Modi, from 40% to around 60%, though divisions like EDD II recorded a dip from 65% to 47%. In Azamgarh, there was marginal dip in line losses from 44% to 43% in the period. The Madhyanchal discom, which provides power to Lucknow, Ayodhya, Bareilly and Gonda, line losses increased from 47% in April 2018 to 52%.
Line losses in Lucknow rose from 47% to 58%
In Lucknow, line losses increased from 47% to 58% during the period. Paschimanchal discom, which covers Meerut, Noida, Moradabad and Ghaziabad, saw line losses grow from 31% to over 36%. In, Noida AT&C losses diminished from 33.3% to over 29%.
Energy minister Shrikant Sharma said that the department is monitoring the situation and seeking explanations from engineers over the rise in power theft. “Those responsible would be punished while those who did a good job would be rewarded,” he told TOI.
Significantly, the discoms and UPPCL have not been effective in controlling power theft and line losses even as the state government has been electrifying villages under central government’s schemes and is strengthening the power infrastructure in urban areas under Integrated Power Development Scheme.