Discoms to go for pre-paid meters

Vijayawada: Vexed with the piling up of electricity bill dues, the distribution companies (discoms) in the State are planning to introduce pre-paid electrical meters in the offices run by some government departments, particularly the revenue and panchayat raj.

Discoms are struggling to collect power bill dues from village panchayats, revenue department offices (tahsildar offices, RDO offices) Rural Water Supply, municipal offices and many others in the State. In Krishna district alone, the dues from various government offices amount to Rs.30 crore.

These government offices are ignoring the reminders sent by the SPDCL (Southern Power Distribution Company Limited) for clearing the dues.

District collectorate and collector’s camp office are some of the major defaulters in Krishna district.

The SPDCL staff is facing intense pressure from senior officials to collect the pending bills. Hundreds of village panchayats in the State are not able to pay power bills to due to financial problems.

Prepaid electric meters work similar to the mobile recharge system where the services are provided as per the payment made by consumers.

The pre-paid meters need some changes to the existing meters. After some units of consumption, the pre-paid meters will alert the consumers to recharge.

Similar to the pre-paid mobile recharge system, the consumers have to pay in advance and use the power to meet the requirements.

SPDCL Vijayawada region Chief Engineer K Rajabapaiah told The Hans India that the Andhra Pradesh Power Regulatory Commission had suggested to discoms to install pre-paid meters to avoid pending bills problem being faced by them for many years.

He said the discoms were exerting pressure on the staff from assistant engineers to divisional engineers to collect dues from the defaulters. In case they fail, they may also lose increments, he said.

Rajabapaiah says village panchayats are the biggest defaulters of power bills. Stating that discoms have to pay to APTransco, which purchases power from APGenco, he said APGenco had to purchase coal and meet the operational and maintenance costs to generate the power.

The discom official said distribution companies have to purchase transformers, wires, poles, electric meters, cables, pay salaries to the staff, wages to meter reading workers, replace many parts and devices to continue power supply. Unless the consumers pay, we can’t provide power, he added.

He said installation of pre-paid power meters would be the only option to prevent the dues, which run into several hundred crores.

He further said industrialists, entrepreneurs and many other consumers were some of the biggest defaulters.

The department officials from village level to mandal level are busy collecting the details of major defaulters to serve notices to clear the dues.