TN defaults payment to RE generators, owes Rs.2,413 crore

Across the country, discoms owe a total of Rs 9,735 crore to the renewable energy (RE) generators and 78 per cent of it has to be paid by southern States. Southern States account for 50 per cent of the total installed capacity of 81,339 megawatt in the country.

Andhra Pradesh leads the table with Rs 2,509 crore followed by Tamil Nadu with Rs 2,413 crore and Telangana with Rs 1,580 crore. Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharastra have outstanding payment between Rs 500 crore to Rs 1,000 crore.

“All large RE generators depend on debt from financial institutions. Payment against generation is only revenue to service their debts. Therefore, any delays in payments would make these projects financially unviable and may lead to non-performing assets in extreme cases. Delayed payments also enhance risks of the sector and those specific States which lead to higher tariffs.

However, it is seen that there have been delays in payments from several States. In some of the cases, delays for renewable generators are more than conventional generators leading to allegations of bias against renewables. In some of the States, delays are more than a year,” the agenda of the national conference on power and renewable energy ministers of States and Union Territories which was held a few days back in Gujarat.

Indian Wind Power Association chairman Prof K Kasthurirangian said that Tamil Nadu has kept backlog on the payment of dues to the RE generators for 26 months. “The State had always failed to pay the RE generators on time but this is the longest period of non-payment.

We are planning to move the Madras High Court seeking direction to pay the dues,” he told DT Next. Pointing out that the discoms, including Tangedco has been paying the dues for the thermal power plants, he said that they were defaulting the payment for the RE generators including wind.

A senior Tangedco official said that steps have been taken to pay the dues for the RE generators at the earliest.