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

State Reports (Vol.-III)
Study on `Impact of Restructuring of SEBs’
Reduction of distribution losses is the single most important item capable of quickly
improving the financial health of the company. Therefore, besides undertaking other
measures mentioned earlier, some urgent actions regarding fixing of energy meters to
DTC and to all HV feeders should be taken on top priority. Also actions/modifications
to the procedure of conducting energy accounting will prove to be useful.
The ground situation in the area of fixing energy meters appears to be not meeting
expectations. The progress in fixing meters to DTCs and HV feeders is slow as can be
seen from data for the period ending December 2005. Out of 2,20,799 DTCs in the
system, energy meters are provided only on 53,700 and of these, energy accounting is
done in respect of 48,254 DTCs. The number of DTCs in urban/industrial areas would
definitely be much larger than those covered in energy accounting. Similarly not all
HV feeders are provided with energy meters. At the time of publishing the White
Paper in 2002, it was reported that out of 7,128 feeders of 11 kV and above, energy
meters were provided on 5,829 feeders. Balance 1,299 feeders were to be provided
with meters by December 2002. The work of providing energy meters on all HV
feeders is still incomplete. This situation needs to be improved on priority.
Along with actions as above, in the new procedure of energy accounting the focus will
have to shift from simply submitting energy audit data to higher officers in the
hierarchy to taking full responsibility and accountability by each concerned officer in
the field in respect of network under his control. Further, the data of losses of
individual DTC should directly be generated while processing the meter readings for
billing by comparing the difference of energy recorded on the DTC meter and the sum
total of energy meter readings of consumers connected to the DTC. No extra
computing should be required for this purpose. The broad principles of modification
proposed for discussions/consideration/adoption by the company are given in this
report.
Improvement in Services to Customer
For payment of electricity bills, consumers have facility to choose from, payment
through banks, post offices, private bill counters, ATM, Internet, etc. Bill collection
has been partially outsourced. To facilitate redressal of consumer complaints,
consumer grievance redressal forums have been set up in each zone at different
locations in the State.
Data of billing complaints in the State is not compiled at headquarter. However the
trend seems to be towards reducing these complaints. From data of Nagpur zone it is
10.38