According to Gridco's unaudited provisional accounts, the corporation in 1997-98 collected a revenue of Rs 1,170 crore, up by 25 per cent over the previous year's collection of Rs 945 crore. However, revenue collection during the year fell by Rs 30 crore short of target.

Gridco saved about Rs 150 crore during the year by reducing the transmission and distribution (T&D) loss by about 5 per cent. The T&D loss came down to 46 per cent from 51 per cent. The corporation proposes to reduce the T&D loss to 41 per cent in 1998-99.

"Despite a good revenue collection, Gridco was not able to reduce the losses since the power cost went up during the year," chairman and managing director B C Jena told `The Financial Express'. He said due to a bad monsoon, the hydel stations could not perform asexpected and Gridco had to purchase high cost thermal power to meet the energy requirement of the state.

Like in 1996-97, the corporation purchased 10,000 million units of power last year. But the power bill came to Rs 1120 crore in 1997-98 as against Rs 900 crore the previous year, he said. Gridco's overhead cost per annum comes to about Rs 240 crore.