CHENNAI: Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji said Tangedco was increasing the number of its section offices across TN to make them more accessible to consumers and increase the utility’s revenue. Balaji said this was part of Tangedco’s administrative reforms, the first since its formation on July 1, 1951.
“Tangedco currently has 2,811 section offices in its 12 zones, but a few of these offices were functioning in the same locality. This made it difficult for many consumers to reach the offices and get their grievances addressed.”
As such, section offices could be bifurcated or trifurcated as per consumer convenience, and divisional offices would be increased from 176 to 220 in all districts. Tangedco would use its available spaces to build new offices.
On staff strength, he said the utility was identifying places with excess staff and assign them to the new offices. All posts, including chief engineers, superintending engineers, executive engineers, and assistant engineers, would be modified.
Currently, each section office handled an average 18,200 connections in an urban area and 140 transformers in a rural area. Efforts were on to reduce this workload to 16,000 and 120 respectively. This apart, workload would be evenly distributed among divisional offices.
On the reasons for the administrative reforms, the minister said Tangedco had a total debt of `1.58 lakh crore and the incumbent state government was intent on making the utility a profitable one. The plan is to execute all the power sector reforms by the next Assembly session and reach breakeven by 2030.