Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje has urged the Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley to provide required assistance to the state to improve the financial condition of the power distribution companies.

During her meeting with Shri Jaitley at North Block in New Delhi on Monday Smt. Raje said various steps had been taken to improve the financial condition of the DISCOMS during our last tenure. But during the last five years the accumulated debt of DISCOMS increased from Rs. 21,000 crore to Rs. 73,000 crores. Due to this increased debt the state government is facing financial problems. She said our government had sent teams to Gujarat to study distribution model of Gujarat to bring down T & D losses. With the use of IT the transmission and distribution losses had been brought down from 43 to 27 percent, she said.

The Chief Minister assured the Union Finance Minister that state government was making efforts to reduce the transmission and distribution losses to 18% in the next three years. She urged the Union Finance Minister to help in enhancing the borrowing limits and ask Banks and other Financial Institutions to bring down interest rates to reasonable levels so that power distribution system could be streamlined. She said currently the interest rates on loan taken by power distribution companies vary from 12 to 15% which is much higher and DISCOMS are not able to bear the burden of interest payment.

Smt. Raje said feeder separation and feeder metering works could be taken up and completed early if the Banks and other Financial Institutions provide loan on lower interest rates and the Centre provides financial assistance.

Jaipur/New Delhi, 26 October 2015