Adani Transmission Limited (ATL) said that construction at its transmission-related project sites is back on track, after a month of delay.

In the earnings call, Anil Sardana, MD & CEO, ATL, told BusinessLine that the company retained workers during the lockdown period. “Close to 4,000-5,000 people we retained at that time and took care of them during the lockdown period in terms of their routine needs.”

The company could work in the remote sites because these sites were not affected by Covid-19. “We are, therefore, going ahead appropriately with our construction schedule apart from the delay of close to about 30 days or so,” added Sardana.

This development also needs to be seen in the backdrop of last week’s Ministry of Power in a notification, which issued an extension to all the awarded projects stating that it is going to be unlocking date plus 5 months with regards to each of the transmission projects that were awarded. ATL as of June-ended quarter had an order book of ₹12,000 crore.

One of the challenges faced by ATL and other companies in the sector was after the lockdown was lifted. “We actually had a problem after unlocking began, as many of the workers got socially compelled and got called back by their families. Therefore a number of those people moved out and the number came down to anything like 1800 at one stage,” said Sardana. It took another month to again get back to 4000 people, he added.

A similar problem is staring at construction major L&T. In the Q1 earnings call, S N Subrahmanyan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of L&T had said that its workforce has only returned to 75 per cent of pre-Covid levels and added that it might take another 40-65 days for the workforce to return to normal levels.

During the lockdown, the government had classified power sector as an essential service with must run status. “Our lines are operating at 99.9 per cent availabilities and there is no adverse impact on billing,” stated Sardana.

Also, for ATL, due to lockdown, even though power demand is down due to lower consumption by industrial and commercial consumers, it was slightly offset by retail demand.

Distribution loss increased due to provisional average billing during lockdown which is getting streamlined as things are getting back to normal and meter readings have been permitted by authorities, pointed out Sardana. Distribution operational revenue was down 34 per cent on a yearly basis to ₹1,437 crore.

Further, economic activity in Mumbai is picking up post relaxation in lockdown, according to ATL. “We noticed improvement in power demand in July 2020 and accordingly the collection scenario has improved substantially,” said Sardana.

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