Power Grid Q1 net up 23% at Rs 870 cr

Mumbai: State-run transmission utility Power Grid Corp, which today reported a 23 percent jump in net profit at Rs 870 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, plans to raise nearly Rs 6,000 crore via domestic bonds in the second half of 2012-13.

The company had a net profit of Rs 705 crore in the same period a year ago.

In the first quarter of FY 2013, the company’s total income surged to Rs 2,980 crore from Rs 2,341 crore in the year-ago period.

“We will be raising around Rs 6,000 crore through domestic bonds in the second half of this financial year to support our capital expenditure planned for FY13,” Power Grid director (finance) RT Agarwal told reporters in New Delhi.

The company has a capex plan of Rs 20,000 crore for the current fiscal. For the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), the utility aims a capital expenditure of Rs 1,00,000 crore.

During the quarter under review, the Navratna company added 2,028 circuit kilometer (CKM) transmission network and 2,395 GW (giga watt).

Also, it added five sub-stations compared to two in the same quarter last year, while its transformation capacity grew 11,833 MVA as against 630 MVA.

At present, Power Grid is operating about 94,000 ckm of transmission lines along with 154 sub-stations with a transformation capacity of more than 1,31,000 MVA.

With use of state-of-the-art preventive maintenance techniques, average availability of transmission system during 2011-12 was maintained at 99.94 per cent and the total inter-regional transmission capacity of national grid to about 28,000 MW, the state-run firm said.

Speaking about the company’s initiative of Smart City in Puducherry, Power Grid chairman and managing director RN Nayak said work on the project will commence in August.

The project involves an investment of Rs 77 crore, of which Rs 25 crore would be borne by the Power Ministry and the balance by the Puducherry government.

“We are also in talks with states including Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir for implementing the Smart City project,” Nayak said.

Besides, studies for the project are being conducted in states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Tripura, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Haryana, he said.

PTI