Commissioner and Secretary power department, L. Kire , lamented that while the state government purchased power at a cost of Rs.160 crore during 2011-12, it could recover only Rs.83.43 crore from consumers and internal revenue, which was around 50% of expenditure.
Kire,who had arrived Dimapur Wednesday from Kohima to oversee the department’s operations against illegal power tapping and disconnections to houses where bills were pending for long period and meter tampering, asserted “we must pay for whatever we consumed.”
Addressing media persons at Dillai gate after the raids, Kire disclosed that during 2011-12, the state’s total energy consumption was 517 million units with urban areas consuming 437 million units and rural areas 80 million units.
Kire said the annual expenditure on purchase of power was only Rs. 140 crore with an additional amount of Rs. 20 crore as penalty for overdrawing power.
He disclosed that there were 1,95,784 power consumers in the state and revenue generated by the power department was only 83.43 crores, while Rs.56 crore was from consumers and internal revenue, Rs.27.43 crore generated from power trading.
Expressing deep concern over the gulf between expenditure and income, Kire said such a situation cannot be allowed to continue and in this regard, the department has to check illegal use of electricity including non payment by consumers.
The commissioner also informed that the department would set up additional counters for receiving payments from consumers.
Kire said the department despite shortage with only 1948 staff has been doing commendable job in providing services to the consumers. Also admitting shortcomings in the department, the commissioner said power department as a “utility department” in Nagaland has been looking after generation, transmission and distribution while in other states, these were managed as separate departments.
“To increase the man power and resources we are in the process of creating new division in the three district of Kiphire, Peren and Longleng”, he added.
The commissioner accompanied officers to areas where raids were conducted by power department against the back drop of power theft and non payment at various colonies in Dimapur such as Rilan colony, Dillai gate area, Veterinary colony and Ao Khel. The department officers were assisted by police and district administration. During the raid the department has detected 13 cases of illegal power tapping and another four cases of power misuse without proper meter box.
EE Dimapur electrical division, Nitovi Wotsa and staff from power and electrical department were also present during operations.
Meanwhile, the department has set a seven-day deadline on payment of bills to those defaulters caught using power through illegal means. (See table in p-7)
Power Dept to curb energy theft
The state department of power has declared to conduct raid on theft of power and penalize the defaulters.
According to superintending engineer, Dimapur electrical circle Er. G. Chishi department in coordination with administration and police would conduct raid on theft of power by means of hooking, pilferage of meters and by-passing energy meters under Dimapur and Chumukedima electrical division.
Er. G. Chishi said energy theft was resulting in overloading of the system and equipments like distribution and power transformers getting burnt down, snapping of
distribution and transmission lines while hooking thereby causing system instability and randomly loading the transformer by installing high capacity equipments without the knowledge and approval of the department thereby burning the energy meters installed in the consumers premises.
Therefore, the department advised to desist from such illegal activities and apply for proper service and load sanction beforehand to avoid heavy penalties as per the Indian Electricity Act 2003 part XIV.
As per the Act, the defaulters are punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both if caught during raids.
The department also requested all the consumers, NGOs, village councils and the general public to cooperate and assist the department in the process of cleansing the menace of energy theft in any form since it was the consumers who were at the receiving end in the event of power theft/system instability.
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