Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY)—a flagship scheme of the Government of India that ran from November 2015 to March 2019—was aimed at reducing the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses of state-owned distribution companies (DISCOMs) by 6%, from 21% in FY15 to 15% in FY19. However, only 50% of the target (18.2%) was achieved by the end of FY19, and there is still a long way to go to achieve the target.
Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) undertook a study to analyse the loss calculation methodology, identify the causes for the losses, and estimate the proportion of technical and commercial losses in the recorded AT&C losses. For this purpose, we selected two DISCOMs— Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (CESC) and Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM)—in Karnataka and focused on 20 feeders from the two DISCOMs.
