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

Weaknesses of the Board
Synopsis of State Reports (Vol.-IV)
Study on `Impact of Restructuring of SEBs’
11.6 Despite several strengths, TNEB suffers due to some of the policies of the State
Government. Free power to the agricultural sector is not only a financial drain on
the Board and the Government, but also an energy drain. Farmers do not seem to
be bothered about energy conservation; they have no incentive to install energyefficient
motors or energy-saving devices or to go in for water-saving crops.
Also, the Board incurs further losses due to the low power factor of the rural
loads in addition to the huge cost it has to incur on capital expenditure to lay long
lines in remote areas. This policy has led to lowering the water table in the State.
Another major weakness of the Board is that it is bloated with a huge staff.
However, in recent years the Board has taken concerted steps to reduce the
number of employees. The system of employing contract workers and the
constant demand to regularise their services later have added to the staff cost
considerably in the past. Further, employees who have become redundant thanks
to system changes are still in position, and they should be re-trained and used
productively. Work norms for various categories of employees have been
liberally fixed – so liberal are the norms that the thermal stations are three-times
over-staffed as compared to that of the NTPC’s stations. Although employees are
individually convinced of the need for reform in this area, unions are resisting
any change, and successive managements have been unable to convince them
and bring about sharp reduction in employee cost.
Major Achievements of the Board
11.7 The Board could take pride for 100 per cent consumer metering, billing and
collection, thanks to its long-established systems. In addition, it has many
achievements to its credit, some of which are listed below:
• Implementing energy audit in all the 22/11 kV feeders, having line losses
of more than 10 per cent;
• 100 per cent metering of 11 kV feeders;
• Special focus on energy conservation;
• Computerisation of inventory management;
• Computerisation of LT and HT billing;
• A focus on consumers through call centres and a web-enabled consumer
redressal system;
• An excellent system for monitoring interruptions in supply;
116