ET Report
Jammu, Feb 24: The much acclaimed streamlining of electricity bill distribution and Plan of government to privatise electricity bill distribution and revenue collection in urban centres of Jammu and Kashmir about two years back failed to take off due to red-tapism which mars functioning of Power Development Department (PDD).
According to sources atleast 100 youth were trained to handle the field work such as bill distribution, meter reading and preparing the list of defaulters by the government so that they can provide a helping hand to department in curbing the electricity theft, but the much acclaimed project failed because officials at the helms of affairs allegedly never took it seriously. Sources said that that though government is talking about privatization of revenue collection and has engaged consultant Price Water House Cooper for restructuring of the department, but even this small project did not move beyond the planning stage. "Shortage of human resources is a major challenge, they said adding, "when it comes to deal with the consumers in Jammu and Kashmir. PDD has the staff strength of nearly 30,000 but as there has been no reorganisation in past three decades and expansion of the infrastructure, it is proving insufficient to deal with the consumers. Most of the maintenance work is already dependent on daily wagers to keep the electricity supply running in the state. Under the above said plan, department had decided to give franchise to local youth, to ensure that recovery process is streamlined.
As per the model, franchisee were not to deal with cash and consumers had to pay their bills in banks, their role was to assist the field staff of PDD to keep an eye on their respective areas and how people use the electricity. Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses has shown a substantial increase in past decade. The losses have increased from 46.98 % in 2005-06 to 61.31 % in the financial year 2010-11, with State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) blaming it mostly on the theft by the consumers.
"The reason for existence of high level of T&D losses is the practice of rampant hooking of LT lines across the State which is not being properly checked by the Department. Even where meters are installed, various means are adopted by a large number of consumers for by-passing and tampering the meters", said an official. However, when contacted Minister for State (MoS), Vikar Rasool said that government has bigger plans to curb losses and improve revenue realisation. "There are many proposals before us. I will have to check about this particular project with the officials and why it has not been taken up," he added. |
