Power stocks have been on a tear-off late. This even as lockdown like restrictions across the country hit demand. The Union government is also working on a "one nation, one grid, one frequency, one price" plan currently. Ashish Upadhyaya, Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser, Ministry of Power discussed everything that’s powering the power sector.

“This is a concept which is developing that we should have ‘one grid’. We have almost achieved it. ‘One price’ – is slightly difficult to achieve. It may take some time,” he said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

The dip in power demand during the second wave of COVID-19 was not as low as it was during the first wave, he said.

In terms of supply glitches, he stated, “We have been meeting the demand regularly and in fact in January this year we had a peak of 190 gigawatts (GW) and we get it.”

“If past trends are to be believed, certainly the demand is going to go up in coming days. Agriculture activities have started, paddy aggregation will take a lot of energy.”

Upadhyaya said demand in northern India particularly is on the rise.

“In June month itself, the northern region saw a sharp increase of more than 25 percent compared to all India increase of about 10 percent,” he explained.

AT&C losses are around 22 percent, he mentioned. “Billing is being done only on 84.25 percent cases. The rest of the cases are not being built at all and out of those which are built by consumers, recovery is 92.06 percent. This is the status of the distribution sector. That is why I said, in future, we have to work a lot on it if we have to achieve more efficiency in the energy sector,” he explained.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Jun 11, 2021 1:08 PM IST