Expect to lower outstanding from HP discom by March: SJVN

Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN), known for its diversified set of power projects, has seen a weak September quarter.

Another major concern for the company is its accounts receivable, which has constantly increased with every quarter.

Speaking with CNBC-TV18, RN Misra, CMD, SJVN said that the management is hopeful to decrease the receivables in Himachal Pradesh where it currently stands at Rs 700 crore by the end of this fiscal year.Below is the transcript of RN Misra’s interview with CNBC-TV18\\'s Nigel D'Souza and Reema Tendulkar. Nigel: The quarter looks rather subdued if you take a look at it. On the top line we saw your revenues coming in low by close to around 29 percent. Could you give us some details what were the realisations, what are the number of units that you sold both for your hydro as well as your thermal business? A: Revenue as you see is negative by 29.4 percent. But the fact lies that during last quarter we had received an arrear of Rs 460.26 crore. Because of that arrear the revenue was more. Nigel: This is the same quarter last year? A: Yes. The arrear pertained to the previous year. And last year's revenue was Rs 749 crore. Against that this year's revenue is Rs 853.87 crore. Means if I compare apple to apple this year my revenue increase is 13.93 percent more. As far as the generation is concerned from the Nathpa Jhakri project last year our generation was 3138 million units. Against that, this quarter it is 3061 million units. It means there is a drop of 2.5 percent in the generation from Nathpa Jhakri. But from Rampur project last year my generation was 612 million units which in this year is 814 million units; so there is an increase of 33 percent. In case of wind, there is a drop of 2 million units. If we take the total, there is an increase of 3.4 percent more in terms of generation. Nigel: Could you give us a sense of distribution. There were some dues that were outstanding from distribution utilities, it was at around Rs 1,100 crore. Could you give us an update on that front? A: As on September 30 our total outstanding is Rs 1,675 crore. Out of that Rs 1,070 crore is more than two months and out of Rs 1,675 crore Rs 700 crore is from Himachal Pradesh. We are in talks with Himachal Pradesh and we are expecting that by March this amount will be reduced a lot and they will liquidate the liability. With the other distribution companies (discoms) also we are regularly following up and we are expecting these figures should go down.