New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS): State electricity distribution companies (discoms) that have adopted the Centre's Uday debt restructuring scheme are on the way to recovery from accumulated losses and should be able to "break even" in around two years, a senior government official said on Monday.

Power Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla told BTVI in an interview here that the discoms had brought down their aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses since the Centre's Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) for debt restructuring had been in operation for a year and hoped to "break even" by the remaining two years of the scheme.

"The results of Uday during fiscal 2016-17 have definitely been promising, the discoms' AT&C losses have come down," he said.

"Besides, their energy build-up has gone up..it has grown by over 9 per cent. Once the billing losses are reduced and the cost of power purchase goes down, discoms' will certainly reduce their losses," he said.

"The Uday trajectory envisages a three-year time frame. The first year is over, the second is going one and by the end of the third the discoms hope to break even," he added.

Bhalla said that as part of their efforts to reduce losses, the discoms are regularly "filing petitions with the regulator for tariff revision".

"UP (Uttar Pradesh) has done so recently. So tariff increases and revisions are taking place regularly.

"We are also promoting metering..not only simple metering but also smart and prepaid," he added.

State-run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has tendered for buying smart meters in bulk for use in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, the Secretary said.

"Presently, the various parameters on discom performance is showing improvement, but losses have not gone away. They will take another 2 years to do it," Bhalla added.