With outstanding of ₹21358 crore, TANGEDCO under threat of being insolvent
TANGEDCO’s total outstanding to power generators have increased to ₹21,358 crore, highest among all state-owned Discoms as of now. The outstanding has been on the rise each month and TANGEDCO has cleared the outstanding to power generators, but the power purchase has been increasing.
Each month, the total outstanding increases by ₹1000 crore, as TANGEDCO depends on private power generators for power supply. Debtors want action against TANGEDCO by filing cases with TNERC or court.
Recently, the Union Power Ministry said that TANGEDCO can also be declared insolvent as it is a company under the Companies Act. Thus, unless TANGEDCO takes steps to pay the power generators, it is under the threat of being insolvent.
TANGEDCO owes a total of ₹6852.77 crore to various public sector power generators and out of this, ₹2924.96 crore is pending to three NLC companies which supply power to TANGEDCO. The Discom also owes ₹1715.80 crore to NPCIL for purchase of power from the two nuclear units of Kudankaulam as well as from Kaiga nuclear plant.
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Similarly, TANGEDCO owes ₹1919.69 crore to the Vallur three units, which are under joint venture with Tamil Nadu and NTPC.
TANGEDCO owes ₹7695.04 crore towards Independent Power Producers (IPP) and out of this, the maximum amount of ₹3,222.32 crore is pending towards IL&FS Tamil Nadu Power Company LTD. Following this, TANGEDCO owes Jindal Power Limited ₹1952.62 crore.
Renewable power capacity is mostly with the private companies. TANGEDCO, which purchases renewable energy to fulfil renewable power obligation (RPO), owes a total of ₹3616.87 crore towards various renewable power generators. Out of this, ₹1775.24 crore is pending to Adani Green Energy Ltd., and ₹1097.53 towards Tata Power Company Ltd.
TANGEDCO has purchased power up to ₹18093.37 crore since the start of the present financial year. In April, TANGEDCO was billed ₹2882.52 crore, which is the maximum amount among all months in the present financial year.
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In terms of payment to various power generators, TANGEDCO has so far paid a total of ₹15,728.91 crore, and the maximum amount of ₹7169.24 crore was paid in September, followed by April, during which ₹2897.62 crore was paid.
“We are trying to pay off the power generators, but the revenue is not increasing as the tariff has not been revised since 2014, when the last revision was done. But the cost of power generation as well as the power purchase tariff has increased several times,” said a senior TANGEDCO official.
