Imphal: The Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited (MSPDCL) is facing mounting financial and operational pressures, with rising consumer arrears, suspected misappropriation, incomplete metering and infrastructure gaps affecting its ability to manage power supply, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) audit.
The audit findings for the financial year ended March 31, 2024, show that outstanding consumer dues rose from Rs 515.51 crore in 2018–19 to Rs 691.09 crore by February 2025. Despite regulations requiring disconnection after a 15-day default notice, MSPDCL failed to recover arrears or disconnect several defaulters.
The outstanding dues included Rs 24 crore owed by High Tension consumers across six sampled divisions.
The cash-flow constraints also affected MSPDCL’s ability to settle wholesale power purchase bills on time, resulting in substantial late-payment charges. In one instance, the company paid Rs 14 crore to the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) for power supplied between 2017 and 2021, of which Rs 10.33 crore was absorbed by late-payment surcharges.
The CAG also flagged suspected misappropriation of Rs 54.63 lakh collected by the Yairipok Sub Division between January 2021 and January 2024. The amount was neither deposited nor accounted for in the cash reserves.
MSPDCL also fell short of its target of 100 per cent consumer metering. As many as 65,587 of its 5,60,238 consumers remained unmetered.
For these consumers, billing relied on an outdated formula that had been withdrawn by the regulatory commission, leaving actual consumption figures unrecorded.
The audit also found gaps in the metering of the distribution network. As of March 2024, only 57 per cent of 11-kV feeders and 15 per cent of Distribution Transformers had been fitted with meters, leaving system-wide energy losses unquantified.
Technological delays further affected revenue recovery. MSPDCL had not migrated 75,612 prepaid consumers to its web-based billing platform, making their exact arrears difficult to track and preventing automatic recovery of outstanding dues through the mandated 20 per cent deduction from recharge amounts.
The financial and operational constraints have coincided with worsening power supply conditions in the state. On September 16, 2026, MSPDCL announced statewide rotational load shedding to address a 90 MW supply deficit, following weeks of persistent power disruptions.