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

State Reports (Vol.-III)
Study on `Impact of Restructuring of SEBs’
For improving the financial position of the distribution sector, the single most
important and known area that has remained to be adequately attended to, is reduction
of commercial losses. A strong and sustained effort is needed for reducing commercial
losses. In Maharashtra, the level of total T&D losses stood at 39.4 per cent in the year
2002 as mentioned in the White Paper. Targets of reducing commercial losses in
urban areas by 3 per cent and rural areas by 2 per cent every year, as well as fixing
energy meters on all feeders as proposed in the White Paper, have not been achieved
(during the period of Internal Reforms) before restructuring or probably even after
restructuring. This suggests a necessity of adopting a revised strategy aimed at
ensuring a much more strong and pointed effort in quickly reducing commercial
losses.
POSITIVE IMPACT OF CONSUMERS’ PARTICIPATION
Through active participation of consumers in rural areas, Maharashtra State Electricity
Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has successfully implemented a scheme
named ‘Akshay Prakash Yojana’ wherein a village opts to voluntarily participate in
the scheme and ensures that no motive power would be used in the period between 5
p.m. to 5 a.m. and the load on the feeder will be restricted to 20 per cent of the
previous level. The villagers also take action to remove all unauthorised high
consumption equipments such as heaters, hot plates and agree that meters be installed
on all service connections. The villagers form a ‘Village Dakshata Committee’ and
ensure that there is no theft of electricity from the transformers serving their areas. On
its part, MSEDCL ensures that there is no load shedding in these villages and supply
is given for 23 hours a day.
Presently over 3,400 villages have voluntarily participated in this scheme and
MSEDCL has achieved a load relief of over 770 MW. More important than the load
relief however, is the participative spirit of people from rural areas to ensure that this
important service of electricity supply caters to their needs and is controlled by them.
The dialogue between villagers and concerned staff of MSEDCL at the field level,
leading to understanding of each other’s concerns and the will to address these jointly,
are the major gains achieved. This participative spirit of rural consumers is a treasure
and no effort should be spared in future in protecting the same against all odds.
With success of this scheme due to its win-win nature, MSEDCL can confidently
devise more and more new schemes and use active participation of consumers as an
additional powerful resource to supplement its own efforts in improving its
performance.
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