Odisha govt asks discoms to meet AT&C loss target by March 2017

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government on Thursday asked the power distribution utilities to bring down the aggregate technical and commercial (AT &C) losses to 30% by March 2017.

Reviewing the performance of four power distribution utilities (discoms), chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi directed them to ensure that the target set by the government is achieved.

The discoms were asked to reduce the AT&D losses at 30% by next year from the current average 34%.

North Eastern Electricity Supply Company of Odisha (NESCO) has reduced 3.33% AT&C loss during the year 2015-16 with the overall loss of around 30%.

Similarly, Western Electricity Supply Company of Odisha (WESCO) has reduced AT & C loss to the tune of 4.44% during the same year and has limited overall loss to 37.89% during the year.

Southern Electricity Supply Company Of Odisha Limited (SOUTHCO) has reduced this loss by 4% during the period with the overall loss of 43.92%. Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) has reduced AT&C loss by 3.5% thereby keeping its overall loss around 37% during 2015-16.

The discoms were also asked to first track replacement of the defective meters and tighten the enforcement activities through squad checks and disconnection for bringing down the theft and bypassing.

They were also advised to improve their cash balance situation by enhancing collection efficiency.

With regard to improvement in the billing system, it was presented that mobile phone photo based spot billing system has been implemented in three discoms. Earlier, CESU has upgraded its billing system with spot billing handsets.

GRIDCO CMD Hemant Sharma said that system has been developed to provide hassle-free new connection to domestic consumers within 48 hours at their doorstep.

E-biz application has been rolled out for providing new service connections to industrial consumers under ease of doing business guidelines, he added.

Efforts are being made to replace  burnt transformers within 24 hours under different schemes.  HT consumers are now being included in automated billing system through GPRS signals through which actual power consumption in every 30 minutes would be automatically recorded, said Sharma.