Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while chairing a high level meeting with Chief Ministers, State Finance Ministers, held through video conferencing here on Monday lauded the revolutionary steps taken by Haryana under the dynamic leadership of Chief Minister Manohar Lal to reduce line losses of DISCOMs and further taking the State at a profitable position.
The finance minister said that Secretary, Central Power Department would be asked to study Haryana’s model to get a better understanding of the blueprint followed by Haryana. During the meeting, detailed discussions were held on creating an enabling ecosystem for increased pro-active facilitation for investments besides topics of energizing growth, reforms, augmenting investments and creating a reform-focused business climate.
Manohar Lal said that under the Structural Reforms in Power Sector, the State Government is making dedicated efforts to reduce the gross distribution and commercial deficit of DISCOMs under UDAY Yojana. During the last five years, the Gross Distribution and Commercial Deficit declined from 30.02 percent in 2015-16 to 16.22 percent in 2020-21. Further, during 2017-18, DISCOMs have achieved operating/net profit of Rs. 412 crore by achieving a financial turnaround two years ahead of the target year.
This profit was Rs 291 crore in the year 2018-19 and Rs 331 crore in the year 2019-20, he informed. The Chief Minister said that Haryana DISCOMS have signed MoU with Energy Efficient Services Limited to install 10 lakh smart meters in the next 3 years. As many as 2.15 lakh smart meters have been installed in the State by December 2020.
Smart metering project by DISCOMS includes several citizen-centric features like prepaid facility, trust reading-based billing, missed call facility to view electricity bill online, making bill payment through post offices, consumer satisfaction rate for new connection and average time of delivery services, shared Manohar Lal.
He informed that due to efficient financial management during the crisis of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Haryana has been able to maintain the fiscal deficit at 2.90 percent of GSDP against the sanctioned limit of 5 percent for the year 2020-21.