The Urja Mitra project initiated by the Ministry of Power to standardise and inform consumers in advance of both scheduled and unscheduled power cuts remains a mixed bag of sorts.
Tangedco, which has completed 95% of indexing of consumer contact details under the ‘Minsara Nanban’ scheme in order to keep them updated about any scheduled and unscheduled power disruptions in their locality, has not been very active in informing consumers about power cuts.
T. Sadagopan, a consumer activist from Pattabhiram, said despite getting his number registered under the Urja Mitra scheme he has not been getting SMS alerts regularly. While at times he gets messages for scheduled power cuts, no messages are received for unscheduled power cuts, raising doubts about the utility of the service.
There are similar complaints of messages about power disruptions not being received by residents in Sholinganallur, Velachery, Madipakkam and Chitlapakkam.
But a section of residents is all praise for the service where they are provided with information about scheduled power cuts a day in advance, helping them make alternative arrangements.
A senior official of Tangedco involved in indexing of consumer details said there are two types of messages — advance power cut information and payment of electricity bills. While the power disruption data is managed under the Urja Mitra of the Ministry of Power, messages regarding electricity bills are managed by the State utility itself.
Under Urja Mitra, Tangedco's involvement is limited to collecting consumer data and sending it to the administrators of the Ministry of Power who the send power shutdown/maintenance messages. In case of unscheduled power cuts, if the local officials do not feed the information, messages would not be sent to the consumers.
The electricity department official said directions have been given to local officials to update the schedule regularly, so that Urja Mitra functions properly.
