CHANDIGARH : The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has sought status report on the implementation of power sector reforms from the Chandigarh administration. A senior UT official said the process to implement power sector reforms is on and soon they will submit their reply to the JERC.
Till date, the UT electricity department has failed to fully implement power sector reforms, especially preparing the online data of consumers, power connections and entire power infrastructure of the city. The work on this programme was started in 2012, but it is far from completion. The Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP) project has been initiated to bring down the transmission and distribution (T&D) losses by upgrading the power infrastructure and introduction of information technology.
As per the proposal, the UT electricity department had planned to implement power reforms, including the introduction of management integrated system, geographical information system among other initiatives to boost e-governance in the working of the department. Under the proposed plan, computerisation of the UT electricity department will be done. A round-the-clock call centre for consumer grievance redress will also be set up.
With computerisation, the UT electricity department will be able to create a database of the information, including electrical loads, sanctioned connections, consumers’ grievances, billing, etc.
As per the plan, UT will put in place the management integrated system (MIS) to speed up day-to-day work procedures in the department. With the introduction of MIS, the department will adopt the use of IT applications for meter reading, billing, collection, energy accounting, auditing, redress of consumer grievances, etc.
The UT electricity department generates bills for domestic customers bimonthly. Domestic consumers have been divided into four groups of 50,000 each. They pay bills in six cycles a year. Bills of commercial consumers are generated every month. According to official records, there are 2.28 lakh electricity consumers, of which 1.99 lakh fall in the domestic category. The department has regular billing of around 95% of consumers.
Source : indiatimes
