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Conduct energy audit at the earliest, electricity regulatory commission tells Chandigarh admn
The commission directed the electricity department to submit an action plan within 30 days for installation of required meters and conduct the audit
With a move to find ways to cut electricity costs and utilise energy better, the joint electricity regulatory commission (JERC) has directed the UT electricity department to conduct an energy audit at the earliest.
During the suo motu hearing in order to ascertain and take on record the work done vis-a-vis targets by the electricity department towards a replacement of mechanical and defective electronic meters and providing them for unmetered connections and also an action plan for such replacement in 2022-23, the Commission observed that all feeders and sub-station are not metered. It directed the department to submit an action plan within 30 days for installation of required meters and conduct the audit.
In the compliance report, the department submitted that only 465 of the 3,134 feeders and 234 of the 2,411 transformers have electronic meters.
The department said, as per the tariff order of 2022-23, the total number of consumers in the city was estimated to be 2,36,654.
The department further submitted that there are no unmetered consumers and the 4,531 defective electronic meters were to be replaced in 2022-23, while those estimated for new connections were 1,220. They were able to replace 3,952 defective meters and provided 1,561 new connections to the consumers in the first and second quarter (from April to September).
The department also submitted that 24,230 smart meters had also been installed in the city. However, the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) had shelved the project to install smart electricity meters in the entire city in October last year.
The central government had approved ₹241 crore in May 2021 for the installation of smart meters in the city under the Smart Grid project, but the work on the pilot project could not be completed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
After several extensions of the deadline, the UT administration had finally completed the pilot project of installing smart electricity meters in the city in May last year.
Under the project, 24,230 smart meters had been installed in Sectors 29, 31, 47 and 48, Faidan, Ram Darbar, Hallo Majra, Raipur Kalan, Makhan Majra and Daria villages as well as Industrial Area Phases 1 and 2.
The administration had planned to replace all electricity meters with smart ones in the entire city by the 2022-23 fiscal.
With the UT electricity department being privatised, however, the MHA has decided to halt the installation of smart meters in the remaining parts of the city.
Later, the Punjab and Haryana high court stayed the process to privatise the functioning of the UT’s electricity department on a petition filed by the UT’s powermen union and the matter is sub-judice.
