Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 3: In a significant decision, the State Administrative Council, which met here today under the chairmanship of Governor N N Vohra, approved the proposal for the restructuring of outstanding power purchase liabilities of Power Development Department through raising of debt by participating in ‘UDAY’ scheme and floating of bonds by State Government.
Power Development Depart-ment has a huge revenue deficit during Financial Year 2014-15 amounting to Rs 3913.50 crore. The outstanding liabilities of CPSU has reached to Rs 3537.55 crore at the end of September 2015 while the total liabilities of power purchases of the State is Rs. 6706.73 crore including that of Jammu and Kashmir Power Development Corporation and the projected liability ending 3/2016 is Rs 6949 crore.
The interest / surcharge burden on account of these outstanding liabilities will be about Rs 1250 crore per annum which will be off loaded after outstanding bills of Power Purchase are liquidated as per the approved restructuring proposal.
UDAY scheme provides an opportunity to States to restructure their costly debt by reducing interest burden on DISCOM (State Govern-ment in case of J&K). Debt taken over by the State under this scheme would not be counted against the fiscal deficit limit of respective State in the financial year 2015-16 and 2016-17.UDAY scheme envisages State Government to ensure that DISCOMs improve their operational efficiencies, particularly reduce AT&C losses and cost of power procurement, so that ACS and ARR gap is bridged within the agreed frame work.
Further, as per the guidelines of UDAY Scheme, the participating States would follow the timeline of targeted activities like compulsory feeder and DT metering, consumer indexing and GIS mapping, upgrade or change of transformers, meters etc. smart metering of all consumers, DSM quarterly tariff revisions etc as per timelines given for each activity. This will ensure reduction of AT&C losses to 15% in 2018-19 and reduction in gap between average cost of supply and Average Revenue Realized (ARR) to zero by 2018-19.
UDAY scheme requires State Government to ensure that DISCOMs improve their operational efficiencies, particularly reduce AT&C losses and cost of power procurement as per the agreed trajectory, so that ACS & ARR gap is bridged within the agreed frame work.
By opting for UDAY the State will accrue additional benefits including reduction of cost of power generation, participating States may get additional/ priority funding through DDUGJY, IPDS, PSDF or other such schemes of MoP if they meet the operational milestones, borrowings by J&K will not be counted against fiscal deficit limit in financial year 2015-16.
The Union Government and the Government of Jammu and Kashmir will enter into a bipartite MoU in order to improve the operational and financial efficiency of Power Development Department and the process of restructuring shall be completed by end 3/2016 under ‘UDAY’ scheme.
Meanwhile, the SAC also directed the constitution of a committee under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary, comprising Administrative Secretaries of Planning, Finance and Power Development Departments to examine and work out different modalities through which the power purchase liabilities of JKSPDC could be settled as per the budget announcement of 2015. The committee shall submit its report within one month.
In another important decision, the SAC approved creation of 187 posts for two dedicated project wings, one each for Jammu and Kashmir and one Project Management Unit at the Secretariat level for monitoring and timely completion of power projects. The creation of these posts is initially for a period of 5 years.
The creations approved include 2 posts of Chief Engineers, 6 posts of SEs, 14 posts of Executive Engineers, 35 posts of AEEs/AEs, 54 posts of JEs and other support staff.
The SAC also approved hiring of manpower required (total-96, Stenographers, Junior Assistants/Data Entry Operators, Drivers and Orderlies) from open market and by outsourcing. The funds required for creation of posts/hiring of manpower and operationalization of these wings/PMU will be provided by the Finance Department.
In view of large public investments in the power sector in future and implementation of various flagship programmes/ CSSs, creation of two additional wings (one each for Jammu and Kashmir provinces) and a Project Management Unit to handle new projects in the distribution sector was considered essential as the personnel of the department were already stretched with their O&M responsibilities and not geared to handle this size of public investment.
In view of the renewed thrust on the power sector reforms, PDD is mandated to handle huge public expenditure under various flagship programmes like R-APDRP, IPDS, DDUGJY and PMRRP in the next three years under Central Sector. The creation of dedicated project wings is expected to give new impetus to implementation of flagship programmes in the power sector.
The Administrative Council also approved the draft Advertisement Policy-2016.
As of now, there are 622 newspapers/publications in the State out of which only 375 are empanelled for publication of Government advertisements. Considering the rapidly changing operational environment and increase in the number of publications over the years, it has been considered necessary and appropriate to revise the existing Advertisement Policy issued way back in the year 1996 in order to bring it in sync with the obtaining requirement.
While formulating the new Advertisement Policy by the Information Department, due care has been taken to meet out the broad social objectives of the Government to promote responsible, constructive and healthy journalism, besides ensuring transparency in the distribution of Government Advertisements amongst the newspapers.
Necessary checks and balances have been incorporated in the revised draft Advertisement Policy-2016 which will go a long way in mitigating various problems and issues faced by the print media and shall further pave way towards a healthy and transparent journalism in the State.
Meanwhile, the Council confirmed the appointment of D C Raina, Senior Advocate as Advocate General of the State. It also confirmed the appointment of different Law Officers for Srinagar wing of the High Court made vide Government Order No. 705-LD(A) of 2016, dated 23-02-2016.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
