The Maharashtra government has ordered an inquiry against Torrent Power, a distribution franchisee of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MahaVitaran) in the powerloom town of Bhiwandi.
A committee expected to be led by a MahaVitaran senior is to probe alleged excess recovery from consumers, fast running of power meters, accidents and deaths due to system faults.
Energy minister Rajesh Tope told Business Standard: “A committee will soon be set up and it will conduct a hearing within a month.”
He said it would also examine if Torrent breached the stipulated rules and conditions in its agreement with MahaVitaran.
Tope made the announcement after the issue was raised by Congress legislators Sanjay Dutt and Bhai Jagtap in the legislature. This is the first inquiry by the state government since Torrent began as distribution franchisee for the Bhiwandi circle in January 2007. Since then, the company has invested a little over Rs 500 crore for systems improvement, reducing aggregate transmission and commercial and distribution losses, and improving metering efficiency.
A MahaVitaran official said of the 136 accidents in question, only 40 per cent were due to system faults. He said they’d already recovered the necessary amount from Torrent for subsidised power to looms.
A Torrent spokesman said transmission and distribution losses had been reduced from 42 per cent to less than 18 per cent and planned load shedding was down to two hours and 45 minutes a day from the 10-plus hours at the time of takeover. Due to network improvement, power reliability had improved considerably. "The company has taken action for removing the prevailing rampant illegal network and duplicate feeds, and initiated strict action against those not maintaining the required clearance from the live network. Torrent has also taken legal action against private operators involved in creating illegal networks for their vested interest," he added. Also, high-quality electronic meters from reputed manufacturers had been installed.
