BHUBANESWAR: The State government on Saturday launched the ‘New Electricity Consumer Billing System’ for providing various services to electricity consumers of the State.
Launching the system, Chief Secretary Suresh Mahapatra said, “The new system is future ready. It will provide for smart meter reading, smart grid, pre-paid regime and correct accounting of renewable energy generated from rooftop solar.”
Principal Secretary, Energy, N B Dhal said that the new system will improve the power service to around 73 lakh consumers in the State with quick power connection, advanced metering, error free billing and collection, dedicated customer care service with a centralised help desk and a state-of-the-art data center at OPTCL.
With customised IT applications for convenience of the customers and ease of doing business, the new system also includes setting up of a disaster recovery centre on cloud and IT infrastructure in the offices of three distribution companies (discoms) - TPNODL (erstwhile NESCO), TPWODL (erstwhile WESCO) and TPSODL (erstwhile SOUTHCO).
Around 517 discom offices at different levels will be modernised with the latest computing and networking equipment.
For developing and rolling out the new system, the State government has funded Rs 117 crore and the Centre has given an assistance of Rs 42 crore under the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS).
The system will bring about digital transformation in providing various services to electricity consumers of the State.
It will also lead to having a real time inventory of the materials and resources available in different divisions so that those could be transported to other divisions whenever required.
The system also envisions reducing the aggregate technical and commercial (A&TC) loss from the present level of 30 pc to 15 pc at the rate of 2 to 3 pc per annum.
The project is being implemented by OPTCL with Fluentgrid Limited as the system integrator and Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Private Limited, India (RBEI) as SAP ERP (an enterprise resource planning software) delivery partner.
Three customer care centres will be operated at each of the discom headquarters for improving customer relationship management and quick resolution of the service requests complaints, and queries raised by consumers, Dhal said.
The Chief Secretary directed the discoms to make the system highly visible with foolproof arrangements for enhancing the consumer satisfaction.