Report of Indian Institute of Public Administration ... - Ministry of Power

Karnataka
GENERAL ISSUES
Organisational Pattern
CHAPTER - 3
PROGRESS OF RESTRUCTURING
Like all Electricity Boards, KEB was a huge multi-disciplined, multi-functional
organisation, internalising practically all activities related to generation, transmission
and supply of power. It had become unwieldy and typically bureaucratic, with
statewide jurisdiction, and employing over forty five thousand employees. As a result,
the most important attribute of a public utility, namely customer care, did not get the
required attention. Although Karnataka had the unique distinction of establishing a
separate generating company (KPCL) to cater to most of the production aspects, still,
KEB had a few generating stations of its own to supplement the power purchase from
the KPCL. Though the plan for restructuring of KEB does not refer to the requirement
of core competency and management efficiency as causative factors for the
restructuring exercise, the division of the Board into more viable corporate entities has
indeed helped to achieve such an objective.
KEB has now been restructured into seven separate companies, one to deal with
transmission, another to manage the separated generation units (VVNL), and five
DISCOMs for distribution. The idea of creating VVNL as a separate unit and not to
merge the related generation units with KPCL 18 was to undertake the privatisation of
the units concerned as stand-alone units. Besides, the original decision was to create
only four distribution companies; but recently, one more DISCOM, viz., CESCOM
was carved out from MESCOM, as stated elsewhere.
The organisational pattern that exists after the restructuring is competent and
conforms to the principle of core competency. Each new company has only one major
function to perform, which would allow for professionalisation. The geographical
areas attached to each DISCOM can be considered to be more viable and manageable
units, and susceptible to close supervisory control. The new organisation of the power
companies in Karnataka would undoubtedly offer scope for better load management,
better quality power supply, universal metering, enhancement of revenue, reduction of
commercial losses, and above all, improved customer care and customer relations.
18 Detailed Policy Statement.
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