Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, July 21: In a bid to avoid power theft and break unholy nexus between the dishonest consumers and some Meter Readers, the Power Development Department has adopted a new strategy of frequent shuffling of the latter.
Implementing the recommendation of State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), the PDD has started shuffling the Meter Readers by rotating their section within Sub-Division and Division, authoritative sources informed the Excelsior.
The shuffling policy has led to surfacing of blunders committed by the Meter Readers as some consumers are approaching the PDD authorities with the complaint of increased electricity bills due to excessive reading of meters than the actual one.
According to the sources, the policy of frequent shuffling of the Meter Readers has been adopted to rule out their nexus with the dishonest consumers, who were allegedly managing to manipulate their monthly electricity bills in connivance with the former. In lieu of money, some Meter Readers used to mention wrong reading of the electricity consumed in their record or sometime even allow the consumers to fiddle with the meters, sources explained.
This unholy nexus was incurring huge revenue loss to the Department notwithstanding increased number of metered connections in Jammu and Kashmir, sources added.
The extent of nexus can be gauged from the fact that a few Meter Readers were managing their posting at one place since years serving their vested interests and incurring revenue loss to the Government.
As per the new policy, sources said, the department has decided to shuffle the Meter Readers within Sub-Division after every three months changing their section. Thereafter, the transfer will be affected from one Sub-division to other after every year and then one Division to other after two years, sources further explained.
There are approximately 750 Meter Readers in three Divisions of E& ME in Jammu, which included Janipur, Parade and Gandhi Nagar Divisions.
Admitting that some PDD Linemen also developed vested interests in prolonging their stay, the sources however expressed inability of the Department in their frequent shuffling owing to limited staff. “We are already facing acute shortage of Linemen and keeping in view of this situation, their frequent shuffling like Meter Readers is not feasible,” sources said.
Pertinent to mention that the State Government has been suffering losses worth hundreds of crores of rupees due to power theft and transmission losses. In the year 2011-12, this loss was Rs 1900 crore, which increased to Rs 2100 crore during the last financial year.
To bridge the gap between revenue and purchasing cost of power, the State Government used to launch the massive drives for collection of arrears and against illegal connections. However, this is for the first time that a strategy has been adopted by the PDD to keep check on its own officials for avoiding their nexus with the dishonest consumers.
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