Mumbai: With the formation of four new companies, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) will find itself unbundled from today.

The MSEB will be dismantled into the MSEB Holding Company, Maharashtra State Power Generation Company, Maharashtra State Transmission Company and Maharashtra State Distribution Company. The companies will be state-owned, under the Electricity Act, 2003 which envisages unbundling of the SEBs.

The holding company came into existence on June 1 while the other three companies would come into being on June 6, a top MSEB official said.

The state electricity board, which made a humble beginning with a 10 MW power plant has grown to about 9,771 MW capacity in the last 45 years and provides power to all towns and about 40,000 villages in Maharashtra. The SEB has the highest generation capacity, highest number of consumers at 1.4 crore and the largest number of agricultural pumps at 24.5 lakh in the country, he said.