Discuss the various reasons behind poor financial performance of the State Electricity Boards citing various government efforts to tackle the problem.

The poor performance of State electricity boards is mainly due to AT&C losses which are made of T&D losses and Technical / commercial losses.
Transmission and distribution losses are mainly due to theft and poor efficiency in transmission. Transmission and Distribution loss are the amounts that are not paid for by users due to incorrect billing or non billing etc.
Technical losses are due to energy dissipated in the conductors, equipments used for transmission line and transformers. Almost 22.5% of the electricity is lost due to this.
Solution to problem
Most transmission in India is of AC which suffers through huge corona losses, government is trying to convert it into DC transmission. Improvement of conductor and other equipments related to transmission. Proper management of electricity bills by installing digital meters in each and every house.

Topics: GS-III: Infrastructure Energy Sector