BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to check power theft, the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) has decided to reward people for reporting such cases while keeping the identity of informers a secret.
Announcing this after a review meeting here on Thursday, newly appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CESU Arun Bothra said 10 per cent of the penalty amount will be given to the informer. The identities of informers will be concealed.
As the aggregated technical and commercial (AT&C) loss of the power utility is as high as 30 per cent, he said, “We have decided to launch a massive drive-in next 2-3 months to curb power pilferage. We seek the cooperation of people in making the drive a success.”
Informing that an action plan has been prepared to address various problems confronting CESU, Bothra said the main objective of the company is to supply quality power to people. Ninety per cent consumers are facing difficulties in getting quality power due to illegal consumption of electricity through hooking by 10 per cent people.
Such illegal use of power by a section of people is impacting the financial health of the company and genuine consumers as well. The CESU CEO said though he is receiving various consumer complaints including power theft through social media and trying his best to resolve their problems, it is not always possible to attend to all the grievances.
“We are trying to find out a long-term solution and ways to improve service delivery. It is my sincere request to people to come forward and register a complaint with CESU if they find any illegality. We assure them that their identities will not be disclosed,” he said.
The senior police officer said plans are afoot to engage women self-help groups (SHGs) in meter reading, bill collection and e-payment system. The SHG members will be provided with hand-held machines for this purpose after training.
Welcoming the move, president of Electricity Consumers’ Association Ramesh Satpathy said such decisions were taken many times in the past but nothing happened due to non-cooperation of CESU staff. “Accountability needs to be fixed and action taken against defaulting officers,” he suggested.
In 2012, CESU had launched an SMS service to curb power theft in its areas of operation.