The Hindu Business Line : Maharashtra power utility reduces distribution losses by 7.64%

Mumbai, April 21 Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (Mahavitran) has managed to reduce distribution losses by a 7.64 per cent for the financial year 2007-08. At present, the distribution losses are 22.11 per cent.

The utility has gained about Rs 1,500 crore from the loss reduction. It has a turnover of Rs 20,000 crore.

Dr A.B. Pandey, Managing Director of Mahavitran, told Business Line that the reduction in losses can be attributed to diligent energy auditing of all units of electricity which flows from 9,339 feeders and on 1,17,000 distribution transformers in the State, he said.

Dr Pandey said the company has also installed meters on all the feeders, which informs about the amount power flowing in an area. By computing the difference between the price of power flowing in that area and customer billing amount, losses were computed, he said.

Every sub-divisional engineer was made responsible for the losses. In the annual confidential record of the engineer, the losses were mentioned. His performance was linked to the loss reduction, Dr Pandey said. He said the losses have been reduced by 7.64 per cent in just 10 months. Currently, Mahavitran’s losses are on par with utilities in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

In June 2005, when Maharashtra State Electricity Board was restructured the distribution losses were 35 per cent. In 2005-06, distribution losses were reduced by 3.16 per cent and by 2.09 per cent in 2006-07.

Novel scheme

Mahavitran’s novel scheme of photo meter reading of customer meters as well as meters on feeders and transformers has also helped to bring more accountability and accuracy in energy auditing. Meter readers take digital pictures of the reading, which cannot be disputed, Dr Pandey said.

The utility has also launched an intense State-wide massive anti-power theft campaign. About 4.5 lakh connections were checked during the campaign launched since April 2007 and about 85,000 connections were found tampered. Offences have been registered against 9,000 persons involved in power thefts and Rs 48 crore were collected as fines.

More Stories on : Power | Maharashtra

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page