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Power staff in UP continue to enjoy unmetered electricity
LUCKNOW Even as the Centre’s proposed scheme seeks 100% metered supply for all consumers to help discoms overcome losses, around one lakh power personnel and pensioners in Uttar Pradesh continue to get unmetered and unlimited supply of electricity that remains unaccounted for, said officials dealing with the issue
LUCKNOW Even as the Centre’s proposed scheme seeks 100% metered supply for all consumers to help discoms overcome losses, around one lakh power personnel and pensioners in Uttar Pradesh continue to get unmetered and unlimited supply of electricity that remains unaccounted for, said officials dealing with the issue.
The Electricity Act, 2003, already prohibits unmetered supply of power to any consumer.
“All the efforts by the state government and the UP Power Corporaion Ltd (UPPCL) management as well as repeated orders by the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) have failed to convince or force power employees to install energy metres in their houses,” a senior energy department official said.
The UPERC recently sought a status report from the UPPCL on the number of power employees in whose houses meters have been installed before it admitted and approved the latter’s annual revenue requirement (ARR) proposal for 2021-22. The corporation had no reply to the question.
“We sought information on the number of power personnel who have been connected to metered supply so far but they did not give any direct reply,” said RP Singh, UPERC chairman.
UPPCL chairman M Devraj refused to comment on the issue. “No comment please,” he said when asked to tell if the corporation had any action plan to install meters on the premises owned by power employees and pensioners.
The UPERC, in its September 3, 2019 tariff order, abolished the separate category (LMV-10) that was meant for unmetered supply to powermen and put them into the MLV-1 tariff category applicable for domestic consumers.
“After the UPERC abolished the power employees’ separate tariff category and put them in the schedule applicable to any other domestic consumer, the UPPCL should have installed meters at power employees’ residences or started doing normative billing in their case (as is done in case of domestic consumers whose meter is defective or have no meter at all) till the meters were installed,” a senior official pointed out.
Under the rules prevailing till the 2019 tariff order, power employees would pay minimum monthly charges fixed for them for unmetered and unlimited electricity use. The charges were deducted from their monthly salary.
“Now, even those minimum charges are not being deducted from their salary because doing it is legally not possible after the UPERC abolished employees’ separate tariff category,” the official claimed.
The Revamped Reforms-Linked Result-Based Distribution Sector Scheme, a new scheme that the Centre plans to roll out very shortly among other things aims at 100% prepaid metering for all consumers by March 2025 to make discoms financially viable to supply 24x7 electricity to all.
“But UPPCL employees, who will be mandated to install meters in all other consumers’ houses, are shying away from installing meters in their own residences,” said the official.
