Discoms not punishing non-performers despite nod, says UPPCL chief
LUCKNOW: Power distribution companies appear to be sitting on recommendations for action against non-performing officials even as the deficit due to poor revenue recovery keeps on growing.
The revelation has come from UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) chairman and principal secretary, energy, Alok Kumar, who has said non-performers are not being taken to task, rendering the progress monitoring mechanism ineffective. He has written letters to the managing directors of discoms, asking them to ensure due punishment to the officials against whom he has already recommended action within three working days.
“It is often being observed that inordinate time is taken in implementing the directions issued by him against the officials found poor performers during the weekly video conferences held to review the progress of revenue realization,” Kumar told the managing directors in a letter he wrote on December 29 last year.
This, he said, was the reason why regular monitoring was not yielding the desired results and the officers concerned were not taking the video conferences that seriously. Kumar has also annexed lists of the officials against whom the action was recommended and the actual action taken or not taken by the controlling officers. For example, in a letter to the Lucknow discom MD, Kumar has cited a dozen cases in which he recommended action against different officials during video conferences in November, The action taken report, he said, was awaited in all the cases.
The action had been recommended for issues like poor thru rate, bills of low reading being issued to consumers or bill not being issued at all, bill revision cases pending for more than seven days at sub division level.
Kumar’s letter comes at a time when the UPPCL’s deficit is increasing apparently due to uncontrolled technical and commercial losses, resulting from rampant pilferage apart from poor billing efficiency.
According to sources, the UPPCL, in a document to the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC), recently admitted that the deficit between the revenue required and the revenue actually realized was as high as around Rs 8,500 crore till September-October, 2018.
“This is an alarming situation which may become more serious as the UPPCL expands its base by bringing more than 94 lakh new rural consumers in its net under the Saubhagya scheme,” said an official. He said spending more on power purchase to serve an increasing number of consumers without being able to recover the cost would create a situation that the UPPCL could not afford.