pCongress President Sonia Gandhi&rsquos remark that Narendra Modi-led Gujarat has been selling electricity outside the state thereby depriving its consumers of power may be a half-truthppWhile the state has carried out massive power sales in the open market in 2012 it has been an aggressive buyer of power too In fact the overall balance of Gujarat&rsquos power trade which was heavily tilted towards sales in January has gradually turned in favour of power purchase over the past few monthsppAccording to the latest data from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission CERC Gujarat&rsquos net power trade stood at minus 815 million units MUs in January The figure is the difference between the power sold 1006 MUs and purchased 191 MUs by the state in January The net power trade was negative in February 630 March 550 May 466 August 50 and in September 28ppThe trend towards increasing power purchase to woo voters is typical of a poll-bound stateppIndian states carry out power transactions in the short-term market in three ways &ndash through power exchanges bilateral trade involving power traders or distribution companies and unscheduled interchange either drawing more power from the grid than permitted or drawing lessppShort-term transactions mean contracts of less than one year period for electricity transacted through any of these three means Perennially power deficit states such as Uttar Pradesh Punjab and Jharkhand tend to buy more than sell particularly in pre-election monthsppGujarat is among the few low-deficit states in India And yet its power purchase from the open market including power exchanges and bilateral contracts shows a constant rise from 117 MUs in January to 428 MUs in April and further to 551 MUs in September Price of short-term power at the power exchanges has remained constant around Rs 3 per unit during the periodppBetween January and September 2012 Gujarat&rsquos deficit hovered between 03 per cent and 23 per cent significantly lower than the national average of 10 per cent Power demand in the state varied between 9000 MW and 12000 Mw during the same period While the low deficit should ideally translate into little or no power purchase Gujarat seems to have bucked the trend owing to upcoming electionsppHigh power purchase due to the election factor is further confirmed by the fact that Gujarat&rsquos agricultural sector is not rabi dominated leading to lower agricultural load in the post-June monthsppExperts attribute Gujarat&rsquos low power deficit to improved performance by the state&rsquos generation utilities -- Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Ltd GSECL and Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd GPCL &ndash apart from innovative distribution managementpp&ldquoThe state utilities have added significant capacities in the past few years Also separation of agricultural feeders transmission lines has helped better meet agricultural load&rdquo said Shubhranshu Patnaik senior director Deloitte Touche Tohmatsup
