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

Madhya Pradesh
agricultural consumers and also to meet the cash deficit of the distribution Utilities.
The burden as projected in the FRP is approximately around Rs 5,000 crore. However,
the additional subsidy burden could be a constraint on the State’s finances. The
financial position of the Utilities in 2004-05 shows cash losses to the tune of Rs 296
crore even after receiving the subsidy.
8.9.2 High Failure Rate of Distribution Transformers
The failure rate of DTs in the MPSEB system has increased by 4.75 percentage points
(from about 18.13 per cent in 2001-02 to 22.88% in 2004-05). The failure rate for the
individual DISCOMs also reveals a similar trend with the failure rate as high as 22 per
cent for Poorv Kshetra and 16 per cent for Paschim Kshetra.
It is desirable that maintenance schedule and maintenance practices under the existing
O&M practices should be reviewed. MPERC must rigorously monitor the standards
of performance of DISCOMs to ensure requisite reliability and quality of power to the
consumers.
8.9.3 Efforts Needed to Improve Metering
The DISCOMs must enhance action on the metering front. Besides poor metering
status in the agricultural segment, the extent of metering in the domestic segment is
merely around 81 per cent. As the consumer base is quite large, significant efforts
would be required to install meters for all the service connections consumers. Further,
checking/verifying the accuracy of the already installed meters of all categories of
consumers must be ensured.
Energy audit should be introduced on feeder/distribution transformer wise and
accountability for energy handled and the corresponding revenues be fixed at all levels
of the organisation.
8.9.4 Need to Improve Collection Efficiency
The collection efficiency in respect of DISCOMs is not up to the mark. While the
revenue collection efficiency from sale of power to the agricultural consumers has
decreased from 88 per cent in 2000-01 to as low as 21 per cent in 2004-05, it is
equally bad for the domestic consumers, i.e., 95 per cent in 2000-01 to 79 per cent in
2004-05. Besides these, the collection efficiencies for industrial and commercial
categories are also declining.
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