by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, News, Politics
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik
Bhubaneswar : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday requested the central government to consider providing 25-33 per cent of free power from thermal power generating stations to the coal bearing states.
The Chief Minister put forth the demand during a discussion with Union Power Secretary Ajay Bhalla at the state secretariat here.
They also discussed several issues related to the power sector and electrification in Odisha.
Patnaik said that coal bearing states like Odisha are facing negative fallouts of coal mining and thermal power stations.
“Therefore, the Centre should consider 25-33 per cent free power from coal fired thermal generating stations to the host states,” he added.
He also asked for de-allocation of costly NTPC power from stations located outside Odisha.
Allocations from NTPC plants within the state and other thermal plants are adequate and there is no requirement of additional power from NTPC stations located outside Odisha, said a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office.
During the discussion, Patnaik sought to speed up the finalisation of Standard Bidding Document for the Ultra Mega Power project at Bhedabahal in Sundargarh district, which is pending for the central government’s approval for more than three years.
He also raised certain issues including of power allocation and rural electrification in Odisha.
He laid stress on the need for inclusion of SECC (socio-economic caste census) households in partially electrified villages under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana to achieve 100 per cent household electrification.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Investing, Large Enterprise
New Delhi : Odisha Tourism Minister Ashok Chandra Panda on Tuesday appealed to the private investors to invest in the tourism sector and tap its full potential.
He also invited the doyens of the tourism industry to participate in the first Odisha Travel Bazaar (OTB) scheduled to be held on October 15-17 in Bhubaneswar.
It would be organised by the Department of Tourism in partnership with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
Addressing a roadshow organised by FICCI in the national capital for the upcoming OTB, Panda said Odisha is emerging as a priority destination for creative travellers for authentic experiences with its unique natural and cultural heritage.
The Odisha Travel Bazaar would give investors an opportunity to explore various sectors of tourism business, he added.
Giving an elaborate presentation on the business and investment opportunities available in Odisha’s tourism sector, Tourism Director Nitin Bhanudas Jawale said that with better air connectivity, Odisha is now easily accessible by travellers from across the globe.
Besides, the unique and business-friendly tourism policy provides lucrative incentives and subsidies to investors, said Jawale.
He said the government had initiated single window clearance system, which has made the process of acquiring various clearances easier.
Jawale said that development of infrastructure in tourism sector was one of the critical components and the State Government was looking for private sector participation.
Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of FICCI Tourism Committee, said the Odisha Travel Bazar would have exclusive focus on business of inbound and domestic tourism, prefixed, structured, organised buyer-seller meets spread over three days, transacting and capitalizing on business opportunities between international, domestic buyers and sellers of Odisha tourism products at the booths of the sellers.
The aim would be to ensure participation of around 40 foreign tour operators, 10 top-of-the-line inbound operators, 20 leading domestic tour operators from across India, five leading airlines — all will be hosted as buyers in the first edition of OTB.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, News, Politics
By Biswajit Choudhury,
Bhubaneswar : A private electricity distribution company (discom) is scripting a remarkable story of cutting its aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses in rural Odisha, which remains one of only two states not to have joined the Centre’s Uday debt restructuring scheme for the hugely indebted Indian state discoms.
Feedback Energy Distribution Company (Fedco), owned by Gurgaon-based Feedback Infra, has successfully achieved an average 23 per cent reduction of AT&C losses in the four years it has been operating in Odisha. For a discom that operates in an area that is 90 per cent rural, this is the steepest-ever reduction in AT&C losses achieved in the country, it claims.
“We have reduced AT&C loss to the extent of 18-28 per cent in areas with 90:10 rural urban combine in the four divisions that we have been operating in four years,” Managing Director Devtosh Chaturvedi told reporters here during a tour of some areas in the company’s jurisdiction.
“The starting losses were in the range of 55-60 per cent and we have brought it down to 30-35 per cent. We have also doubled the consumer collections, meaning more revenues for the government,” he said.
In Odisha, Fedco operates in Khurda, Nayagarh, Puri and Balugaon divisions falling under the Bhubaneswar circle. The tour for journalists included a visit to the Puri Jagannath temple illuminated at night in all its splendour.
One of the four most sacred temple pilgrimages among Hindus, the “pandas” or priests at Jagannath make up the foremost community of Puri. They live in areas around the temple and used to be among the major defaulters on electricity bills before Fedco came on the scene, Chief Executive Samarjit Mohanty explained.
Behind Fedco’s success is its outreach to consumers through what it calls its “community engagement” division, which engages with “difficult” defaulters, even as the discom developed a reputation for quickly attending to outage complaints without needing to be bribed.
“From 91 most difficult villages in 2014 in Fedco areas… the number has now come down to 31,” Mohanty said, attributing community engagement as a key factor behind the turnaround in AT&C losses.
The AT&C reduction is the second-best by any power distribution franchisee after that by Torrent Power at Bhiwandi in Maharashtra, Chaturvedi pointed out.
In fact, Fedco’s entry into Odisha in 2013, following the devastation caused by cyclone Phailin, came with a massive act of community engagement, where the discom erected over 4,000 electricity poles to resume power supply in record time in the devastated rural areas.
Odisha is the only state with private franchisees engaged in rural power distribution, and was the first to adopt the privatisation model in distribution way back in 1995.
Fedco’s USP is its record in bridging the rural-urban divide and taking up distribution in non-urban, “problem” areas. It is predominantly a rural utility with only 10 per cent area in urban segments.
“Most discoms are wary of the challenges in collecting dues in the rural areas. Instead, in these three years, Fedco has doubled its annual cash collection to nearly Rs 400 crore,” Chaturvedi said.
Fedco is a distribution franchisee of Odisha’s state-run Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) under the management-operator model. Here, while the entire capex investment is made by the government, the responsibility and accountability, including reducing AT&C loss, customer service and the introduction of new technology, rest with the private company.
Fedco has a customer base of over 530,000, to which there is an annual increase of three per cent, or 15,000 consumers, company officials said.
Chaturvedi explained that Fedco’s record in turning around the gap between power purchase cost and revenue collection, as well as in providing customer satisfaction, had spread by word-of-mouth, enhancing its reputation in rural areas.
“In these three years, the power purchase cost in our four divisions has come down below the revenue collection. While our realisation per unit (RPU) of energy figure was 1.71 in 2013, it is now up at 2.71,” he said.
“The agreement with Fedco has resulted in substantial benefits in the way of assured revenue, better customer service, AT&C loss reduction and technical innovation through IT infrastructure,” said P.K. Sahu, Superintending Engineer, CESU, which is the government part of this public-private partnership (PPP).
As for the the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) debt restructuring scheme the central government launched in 2015, Odisha (as also West Bengal) has not joined it because it is one among the few that has never subsidised discoms, Chaturvedi pointed out.
“The state will not feel the pinch of not joining Uday because it has never given subsidy to discoms. The power in Odisha is substantially hydro-electric, the generation cost of which is quite low in comparision,” he said.
(Biswajit Choudhury’s visit was at the invitation of Fedco. He can be reached at biswajit.c@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
Bhubaneswar, (IANS) The Odisha government is preparing a telecom policy to improve telecom infrastructure and connectivity in the state, said an official on Wednesday.
The government has initiated steps to prepare the telecom policy to provide facilitative support to the telecom industry with the objectives of boosting up telecom infrastructure and connectivity.
The provisions of the policy will support erection of mobile towers, laying of underground and aerial optical fibre cables and installation of inbuilt solutions, said the official, adding the decision was taken at a recent high-level meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi here recently.
Considering the proposed draft and existing regulations relating to telecom sector, Padhi advised to charge rational and supportive premiums/rents to telecom companies which are coming forward to lay connectivity infrastructure in the districts, more particularly in remote unconnected areas.
He also directed that more than one company should share the same tower and minimize the land use.
Available data shows that tele-density in Odisha has grown up to 69.38 per cent, which is still below the national average of 79 per cent and it was decided in the meeting to boost it up. The rural tele-density in the state is around 45 per cent.
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business
Bhubaneswar:(IANS) Aiming to provide an enabling platform to MSMEs for exploring new markets and expose them to technological advancements, the Odisha government will hold MSME Trade Fair-2016 from January 8 to January 14 here.
Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSME) Minister Jogendra Behera said that MSMEs will be given a platform to showcase their products and services along with an opportunity to imbibe advancements in technology which will be displayed at this mega event.
Credit facilitation and information dissemination for facilitating entrepreneurs in the sector would be taken through banks and different agencies, he added.
Large industries will also participate to identify potential suppliers, vendor development and downstream activities and seminars and workshops on different themes or concepts, buyer-seller meets will also be organized, said the minister.
The event is a destination for several delegations comprising of buyers, participants and service providers from various states all over India and has thus become a brand of immense value and tremendous potential.
Behera said that in this fair, it is proposed to have around 250 stalls for participation of MSMEs, technology providers, large industries, banks and promotional agencies.
Looking at the scope and potential of agro and food processing, tourism, handicrafts and handloom sectors in the state, focus has been given to highlight the products and services of these sectors, he said.
A business delegation from Vietnam will be visiting the fair.
