The Centre and Manipur Government have jointly initiated a scheme on the availability of a reliable, high quality and affordable 2,787 power meters for all in the state.
This initiative has been taken up to provide reliable power supply with the help of the new pre-paid power facility and thus improve the quality of life there.
Manipur will now witness a change in the power sector with the installation of about 2.2 lakh pre-paid electronic energy meters, which will provide 2.40 lakh consumers of the Imphal valley with electricity.
The total number of electricity consumer in the state is 2, 80,783, including 2, 64,101 domestic consumers. This new system of power supply has also resulted in the detection of unauthorized consumers and ensured spot collection of revenue
"Due to the lack of proper infrastructure and recovering mechanism, we were running into loses. Then we took up the novel idea of providing meter boxes to the people because it does not have all the problems associating with meter reading, bill distribution and bill preparation," L. Priyokumar Singh, Executive Director, Manipur State Power Distribution Company Limited (MSPDCL) said.
"After this, one aspect that is manpower or human involvement has been completely minimized and billing along with collection is now 100 percent," he added.
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Out of a total installed capacity of 2,054 mega watt in the north-east region, 182 mega watts is currently being allocated to Manipur.
MSPDCL has considered 12 towns of Imphal, Lamsang, Wangoi, Wangjing, Yairipok, Sugnu, Heirok, Jiribam, Tamenglong, Ukhrul, Kangpokpi, and Sekmai for this project.
Bedhajit Singh, a consumer, spoke in support of the initiative.
"Earlier, a lot of consumption was there but I think because of the power theft, revenue was not generating. But now the people have realized they should get legal power supply rather than power theft so that everyone can enjoy the facilities equally. Moreover, most people have now started using LED lights so the power consumption is less," he said.