New Delhi: The outstanding dues owed by the power sector to Coal India Limited (CIL) has risen to Rs 22,126.87 crore in September, registering a rise of Rs 775 crore over the previous month, official data sourced from the Ministry of Power showed. In August, the dues payable by power sector to CIL was at Rs 21,351.77 crore. The figure for September is the second consecutive time when the outstanding dues of power sector have risen after registering a nominal decline in July at Rs 20,570.76 crore.
It was expected that with the government infusing Rs 90,000-crore liquidity into discoms, the situation of cash flow in the power sector would improve. However, the figures for September show a fresh increase.
The data showed that even though power sector's outstanding dues to Coal India have charted an upward trajectory consistently in the second half (H2) of FY2020-21, the overall rise in dues is lower as compared to H1 of the fiscal year. At the end of March, power sector dues to CIL stood at Rs 14,374.05 crore and rose to Rs 20,918.96 crore at the end of June, marking a rise of around Rs 6,500 crore.
However, the rise in dues between June and September has been Rs 1,207.91 crore. This shows that while legacy dues still exist, current dues have reduced between June and September.
The power sector is under financial stress mainly due to discoms' inability to pay power generating companies, which in turn, are unable to pay companies further down the chain, like Coal India, which supplies supplies around 80 percent of its total supplies to the power sector. At the end of June, the cumulative dues owed by discoms to power generating companies, including CPSUs, state gencos, independent power producers (IPPs) and Renewable Energy developers, stood at Rs 1.20 lakh crore.
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