M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, May 20: Raids against electricity theft are in full swing in the Palamu division comprising three districts namely Garhwa, Latehar and Palamu.
The general manager cum chief engineer of the electricity department Sanjay Kumar on Friday said, “There has never been such a massive raid against illegal and unauthorised use of electricity as we are doing it over the last 6 or 8 months.”
“On an average, 500 raids are being conducted in a month in the Palamu division. The number of the FIRs a month is 250 or so. Our drive against the theft of electricity will be more intense,” he added.
According to sources, despite raids against illegal and unauthorised possession of electrical lines in homes, shops, and businesses, the electricity department cuts a sorry figure when it comes to revenue collection.
The electricity department languishes badly in terms of revenue, to put it simply, money from the customers who use electricity but dither to pay the bill.
“On an average, we receive Rs 11-12 crore units of electricity a month. Consumers use it but when it comes to payment for the bills, they look the other way. Why? Pay our bills so that we can give you better services,” Sanjay Kumar said.
According to the general manager cum chief engineer there are 6,43,000 consumers in the three districts of Palamu commissionerate. This figure consists of both urban and rural consumers.
“It is the rural customers who show apathy towards payment for the bills than the urban customers. Urban customers pay them on time,” Sanjay Kumar said.
Each household has a meter that has to be read by the meter reader for billing.
Sanjay Kumar said, “I have no hesitation to say the outsourcers drafted for meter reading and billing fail to reach every installed electricity meter in the household. The outsourcers are to reach but they are not reaching. When there is no billing, there is no money.”
On the question of why the outsourcers fail to read the meter and generate a bill, Sanjay said “They lack commitment, sincerity and dedication. These outsourcers are not on our payroll. Their efficiency and quality of doing work are sadly missing.”
The minimum cost of one unit of electricity is Rs 3.85. By this account, the electricity department here ought to get Rs 42 crores as its monthly collection. But it gets a meagre Rs 20 crores on an average.
Commenting upon this, Sanjay Kumar said “We lag in the counter collection. Rs 42 crores monthly collection is our objective but we are forced to settle with 20 crores a month. This is a big gap between what we should have and what we get.”
A shortfall in the collection has collateral damage also. Here in the electricity department, there is a subsidy worth 8 to 10 crores. This subsidy sinks when the counter collection of the electricity bill payment nose dives.
On being asked as to why Lok Adalat gets more cases of disputes and claims to the electricity department, Sanjay said as disputes and claims are mostly compoundable in nature, Lok Adalat does award for it to the satisfaction of both the parties say the electricity department and the customers.
Sources said the electricity department has added more teeth to its infrastructures like power substations, transformers, length of electricity lines, making electricity accessible etc. Nevertheless, there are hundreds of government schools, health centres, Anganwadi Kendra and villages falling across the Palamu, Garhwa and Latehar districts which still don’t have electricity.
“We are seized by the issue and efforts are on to energise the government institutions,” Sanjay said.
Sources said all over the state the electricity department faces a human resource crunch which the government tries to replenish with an outsourcing agency.
On this, Sanjay said, “Today we have our workforce far less than what we had had in 1960 but our expansion or growth vertical and horizontal both have been extremely manifold and multifold.”
