New Delhi: State-run non-banking financial company, Power Finance Corporation (PFC), sanctioned more loans in the Renewable Energy (RE) segment than conventional power generation in FY2024-25. PFC’s total loan sanctions in this financial year so far stands at Rs 2,52,000 crore, Chairperson and Managing Director (CMD) Parminder Chopra told investors at a recent quarterly conference call. Out of the total, sanctions to the RE power generation segment stood at Rs 90,000 crore, which accounted for 35.71 percent of the total sanctions. On the other hand, loan sanctions to the conventional power segment was Rs 66,240 crore which was 26.29 percent of the total sanctions. As a whole, power generation accounted for 62 percent of PFC’s total loan sanctions in FY2024-25 so far.
“So, if we bifurcate INR 252,000 crores, around 62 percent is towards generation, including renewable and conventional, around 16 percent is towards distribution, around 7 percent in the transmission and around 9 percent in the infrastructure,” Chopra told investors.
Responding to a question on RE capacities that have not been able to sign Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with power distribution companies (DISCOMs) and the exposure PFC has to such projects, the CMD said that the PSU has not funded any RE asset which is not supported by PPA. “… we have heard that there has been some PPA in the renewable front, which has not been entered into and there is a capacity which is not supported by the PPA. But let me assure you that we we have not funded any such asset. And if you see during the current quarter, our disbursements are primarily, one on the renewable front and the other is on the distribution side what we have experienced,” said Chopra. She later added that PFC has disbursed Rs 16,000 crore in the current financial year and
Chopra said that distribution accounted for 60 percent of the total disbursements in the December quarter of FY25. “So going forward also, in the next quarter, we are looking majorly on the distribution side that our disbursements are going to be there and followed by the generation side. We have in pipeline good disbursement planned out for the current quarter for the financial year FY25. So we are quite hopeful that this quarter also, we are going to have a disbursement on distribution as well as on the renewable side,” the CMD told investors.
Commenting on the slow implementation of the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) so far, the PFC CMD said that the company sees a positive momentum building up in the implementation of the scheme going forward as contracting is over. “RDSS, as everybody knows that during the initial phase of RDSS scheme, the scheme was being conceptualised. There were a lot of modalities, which are required to be put in place. So at that point of time, there was a slow pace for the RDSS,” she said.
“But now since most of the sanctions have already been done, and 94 percent of the sanctioned work under reduction and 90 percent of the works under smart metering has already been awarded, so we are expecting that now onwards, it’s going to pick up for the disbursement as the execution is going to happen, contracting state has been over. So, on that front also, we are seeing a positive momentum on implementation of the scheme,” said the CMD.
