A Review of Restructured Power Development and Refo Rm Programme in India

The power sector is one of the most important infrastructural aspec ts of the Indian economy. But of late, it has been facing some serious problems such as old worn-out and poor distributi on network leading to frequent outages, skewed tariff structure, huge Transmission & Distribution (T &D) losses largely due to outright theft & unmetered supply, high LT/HT line ratio, overloaded DT/ Lines, lack of accountability at feeder level and in distribution setup of State Electricity Boards (SEBs). Henc e, the Government identified Distribution Reforms as the key area to bring about the efficiency & commerc ial availability into the power sector. The Government took various initiatives in this direction; one of these is the introduction of Accelerated Power Development Programme (APDP) in February, 2000. The main objective of thi s programme was to initiate a financial turnaround in the performance of the State owned power sector