Assam Joins UDAY

Assam joined the UDAY (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) on Wednesday by signing a MOU with the Centre for operational and financial turnaround of their respective DISCOMs (state distribution companies). The MoU was signed at the launch of UDAY web portal and mobile application in New Delhi by Union Power minister Piyush Goyal. The portal would track and monitor the progress of DISCOMs on operational and financial parameters under the UDAY scheme. An important part of the Digital India initiative, the portal will ensure transparency, enhance accountability of various stakeholders and facilitate view of near real time progress, enabling consumers to demand better services for themselves.

The Assam government would now take over Rs 928 crores out of a total Rs 1510 crores DISCOM debt and the balance would be re-priced or issued as state guaranteed DISCOM bonds. This would amount to annual saving in the interest cost of Rs 37 crores to Assam. The interest cost on future borrowings is also expected to reduce, providing a saving of around Rs 30-40 crore to the state. An additional revenue of Rs. 699 crores would accrue to Assam on reduction of AT&C losses and transmission losses. The gain through demand side interventions in UDAY such as usage of energy-efficient domestic as well as industrial/commercial equipment is expected to be around Rs. 260 crore with an overall net benefit of approximately Rs 1663 crores by way of savings in interest cost, reduction in AT&C and transmission losses, interventions in energy efficiency, coal reforms etc. during the period of turnaround.

Giving details of the UDAY portal, Goyal informed that it would provide details of latest progress made by various DISCOMs. The data will be integrated into state level and national level, which will be processed and used for advanced performance analysis. The national, state and DISCOM level dashboards will thus provide a snapshot of latest financial and operational performance at various levels in public domain. Goyal also said that the portal is a logical follow-up to the MoUs signed by the states under UDAY, not only to enable monitoring of the progress made by the DISCOMs but also for making future schemes for improving performance.

“This will be the first time when the performance metrics of various DISCOMs will be available in a single platform, which shall promote healthy competition amongst the DISCOMs. This will bring about an ethos of competitive federalism among different states to achieve best progress in public schemes, especially in the power sector,” Goyal added. Praising the advent of transparency and accountability with the launch of web portals and mobile apps, Goyal said that the implementation of public programmes and schemes has become citizen process, as these portals and apps have placed all the information in public domain for scrutiny. He added that suppliers can also develop their capabilities by understanding the focus area of the utilities, resulting in improved performance. The Power minister also talked about starting a citizen poll to receive feedback on the ground level achievements of different schemes, which would help recalibrating their implementation process.