The central discom has taken the opportunity of General Elections to resolve its affairs in the Old City from where it incurs huge losses. Officials from the APCPDCL’s Operations and Vigilance wings have been conducting a drive on the commercial establishments of the South Circle to detect cases of direct theft and tampered meters.
Governor’s rule and lack of political pressure have provided the perfect setting for the company which is otherwise hassled even to collect its monthly bills in parts of the South Circle.
sLosses from the circle, as calculated by the gap between metered sales and actual supply measured at 11kv transformer level, amount to anywhere between 30 per cent and 60 per cent across various divisions.
Tampered metersTampered meters are behind most loss-making feeders, as vouched by the officials, even while collusion of customers with linemen also contributes to lesser billing in some cases. Attempts to inspect the meters are often met with ferocious protests by consumers supported by political leaders, sometimes ending in officials getting bashed up.
In this context, the company has now embarked on a drive to replace electro-mechanical meters with digital meters in the circle, and inspect the existing digital meters for signs of tampering.
Teams of officials have so far carried inspections of 887 connections, and found 20 instances of direct theft from the conductors. Further, 350 meters have been found tampered and confiscated, informed the Chief Vigilance Officer of CPDCL Muralidhar Rao. The confiscated meters will be sent to the lab for tests, after which penal action will be initiated against the offenders, Mr. Rao said. Additional staff has been deployed at the labs for expediting the testing.
So far, inspections have been conducted in locations such as Chudi Bazar, Moghulpura, Seetarrambagh, Chatrinaka, Bahadurpura, Mangalhat, Karwan, and Mirchowk.
“We are scheduling the inspections based on the police station limits, as we need to take policemen along,” informed the Superintending Engineer of South Circle Suresh Kumar. However, this being election time, the police department is finding it difficult to allot personnel.
So far, 8,616 mechanical meters have been replaced with digital meters, Mr.Suresh Kumar informed.
These apart, each and every distribution transformer-- as against the 11kv transformers earlier-- is being fixed with a meter to assess the actual consumption vis-à-vis the metered. So far, a total of 4,676 such meters have been fixed to transformers, with a balance of 1,340 remaining.
“By doing so, we can know at micro level, which area is reporting more losses and accordingly, plan our future inspections,” Mr.Suresh Kumar informed.
