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| BSES and Tata Power came to the Capital with the reputation of having managed Mumbai's distribution business in an exemplary fashion over the decades.
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| While it may take a while for the companies to match the services they are providing in Mumbai, both Tatas and BSES have started the process of benchmarking Delhi's operational standards to that of their respective zones in Mumbai.
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| Without expecting miracles, the power situation in Delhi should definitely be better than what it was in the previous year, with the losses coming down progressively, a Tata Power official said.
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| In their Annual Revenue Requirements (ARR), the three companies have committed to achieving their aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) loss target of between 1.5 per cent and 2.25 per cent this year. Two of the three companies, however, did not manage to achieve their committed loss reduction of around 0.5 per cent in the first year.
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| "The first year was difficult for us since it took nearly three months (from July to September 2002) to understand the systemic problems before actual work got underway. This time we have the entire year and a knowledge of the problem areas," a private company official said.
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| According to the private companies, providing better quality and needed quantity of power to those who pay for it and bringing more people into the payment net are their immediate priorities. Also, the use of information technology tools to bring in efficiency is high on the agenda of both the distributors.
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| The Tata controlled North Delhi Power Ltd (NDPL) has, for instance, linked the process of energy audit and its AT&C loss reduction strategy.
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| Starting from energy measurement at Grid stations to ultimately identification of consumers on the basis of the transformers feeding them, NDPL is focusing on energy audit to pin point the losses, thereby helping in strategising their loss reduction endeavour.
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| Apart from this, NDPL has earmarked four amongst its existing 40 zones to be promoted as models of excellence in terms of technical parameters, consumers services and employee development. This would over time be replicated in the other zones in a phased manner.
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| Each zone has been asked to earmark one 11 kV feeder as a fault free feeder and work towards making it an example to be emulated by other feeders over time.
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| BSES also plans to invest between Rs 3,000 crore and Rs 4,000 crore over the next few years to improve power distribution activities in the Capital.
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| An investment of close to Rs 800-900 crore annually towards this end has been earmarked, an official said. BSES has already launched initiatives like new performance/outages standards like the system average interruption frequency index and system average interruption duration index for improving operational standards.
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| Open access of power, as envisaged in the Electricity Act 2003, may take some more time to come into effect in Delhi. This is because the distribution companies paying for the power purchased from Delhi Transco Ltd. based on their paying capacity during the five-year transition period.
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| Hence while the distribution companies are not likely to scout for sourcing power from alternate sources other than Delhi Transco Ltd due to economic reasons, consumers wanting to take advantage of the provisions regarding freedom to choose a distributor of their choice would have to wait for the state regulator to come out with its policy on open access.
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| Unlike Mumbai, though, Delhi's power scenario is characterized by inadequate network capacity, insufficient generation capacity and a heavy dependence on the grid. |
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