Power outage amid heatwave: Odisha government asks Tata Power to take immediate action
BHUBANESWAR: Amid massive public outrage over power supply disruption across districts, the state government on Monday asked Tata Power-managed distribution companies to take immediate and effective measures to ensure uninterrupted supply to people who are reeling under intense heatwave conditions.
Taking stock of the power supply situation at a high-level meeting with chief executive officers (CEOs) of four distribution companies (discoms) at Lok Seva Bhavan here, chief secretary Pradeep Jena asked discoms to take prompt measures to restore power supply in case of disruption due to external factors like Nor’westers.
Faced with large-scale complaints on poor grievance redressal mechanism and complete apathy of the discoms in responding to the people in time distress, the chief secretary directed the CEOs of TPCODL, TPSODL, TPNODL and TPWODL to put in place a system for quick response and immediate resolution of grievances raised through social media.
Taking strong exception to the callous approach of the distribution utilities to consumer complaints, Jena is stated to have directed the CEO of Tata Power to improve the functioning of the customer care service by engaging additional manpower. “Care should taken to ensure that each of the call from consumers to customer care service centres are responded to with proper clarification about the time required for restoration of power supply. Any negligence in this regard in future will be viewed seriously,” he cautioned.
Emphasising on proper coordination between the energy department and the discoms, the chief secretary asked the department to monitor the activities of power utilities, and in case of negligence take action as deemed proper.
The discoms on their part stated that capex proposals for system strengthening and infrastructure upgradation have been submitted to OERC and pending approval for a long time. The chief secretary sought to know the reason for delay from OERC director (regulatory) Jena instructed the discoms to take serious note of the heat wave and high humidity and act as per the disaster management plan.
The Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited and discoms were advised to prepare long-term transmission and distribution plan for next 10-15 year keeping in mind the demand growth. Instead of annual plan, the discoms were advised to submit multi-year capex plans, preferably 3-5 years.
Additional chief secretary energy Nikunja Dhal has also convened a meeting of the four CEOs on Tuesday to discuss the prevailing electricity supply problems in the state.