Orissa loses Rs 800 crore annually due to power theft.

Orissa suffers an annual loss of around Rs 800 crore due to power theft as well as because of faulty transmission and distribution practices.The loss of Rs 800 crore is despite the fact that the government has reduced T&D loss by around 10 per cent."The percentage of T&D loss has decreased from 47.5 per cent to 39.6 per cent between 2001-02 to 2005-06," said state Energy Minister S N Patro.Stating that the government was not happy over the achievement in reducing T&D loss by 10 per cent, the minister said systems should be upgraded."We need to develop mechanism as well as educate people involved in the power theft in order to bring down revenue losses," the minister said while replying to a question in the assembly on Saturday.Out of the four distribution companies’ in-charge of power supply in four different regions of the state, Central Electricity Supply Unit (CESU) recorded maximum T&D loss, about 42.8 per cent, while Northern Electricity Supply Company (NESCO) recorded 37.1 per cent loss, the minister said.Distribution companies in central, northern and western regions of the state have reduced T&D loss by six per cent, 14 per cent and eight per cent respectively whereas it has increased marginally in southern region, the minister said.Though the state had succeeded in bringing down the T&D loss to an extent, it had failed in tackling the power theft problem faced by all the distribution companies, sources said.