Power utilities up the ante against theft

The state-owned power discom MSEDCL is going to adopt the carrot and stick approach to deal with huge menace of power theft in the state.

A scheme giving cash incentives and disincentives will be soon launched, said MSEDCL MD A B Pandey. He was addressing a press conference called to give the details of drive undertaken by the power utility against the power theft.

The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission has accepted our scheme of incentives and disincentives and work of fixing up the benchmark performance in each circle.

After which scheme will launch.

Elaborating on the scheme Pandey said, "If performance of the particular circle is above benchmark in reducing the distribution losses, then employees from that circle will receive certain cash reward and if the losses are higher than benchmark, then they will loose certain portion of their salaries."

There is no pressure from employees union of giving out particular distribution areas to franchisees on the line of Bhiwandi circle, the programme to give out areas for distribution to franchisees is going on as per schedule. The last date for submitting the tenders for Nagpur circle is July 14 and after which other 10 circles will be also soon given to franchisees for distribution, Pandey claimed while answering the question.

The drive undertaken by MSEDCL has revealed that power utility incurs heavy losses in Marathwada region where the percentage of distribution losses touches to 60 per cent.

The chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh¿s home district Latur and senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde¿s home district Beed, who also held the energy portfolio during BJP-Sena government, stood third and second respectively in the list of districts where MSEDCL incurs high distribution losses.

During the drive on since last fortnight, MSEDCL official detected more than 7,000 cases of power theft, in 1,172 cases they initiated criminal proceedings also considering the grievous nature of the theft. The total amount of theft was Rs 4.7 crore and recovered around Rs 96.67 lakh so far.

Pointing out that MSEDCL took action in over 2,000 cases of power theft in Latur district alone and filed FIR in 434 cases Pandey claimed, shows Chief Minister Deshmukh and political leadership of the state is completely behind our drive.

On the lines of special police squad attached to the Mumbai Municipal corporation to assist them while in their anti-encroachment operations, we are going to send a proposal to the state government to create such special squad for MSEDCL also, Pandey added.

Due to sustained efforts during last financial year we managed to reduce our distribution losses from above 32 per cent to 29 per cent and this year, we aim to bring it down to 25 per cent. A one per cent reduction in distribution losses, roughly means, additional revenue of around Rs 200 crore to the utility, Pandey said while answering the question.