Indore: The officials of Western Region Power Distribution Company are jittery as they have been given the biggest revenue collection target of Rs 900 crore for November month.
A senior engineer stated that they are going to raise this issue with the principal secretary (energy) Sanjay Dubey who is going to visit the West Discom headquarters on Friday.
At present, the revenue collection from Malwa-Nimar region is around Rs 600 to 650 crore per month.
According to officials, it will be impossible for them to meet Rs 900 crore especially in Covid-19 times.
If still forced to achieve the “unrealistic target”, West Discom may start the recovery of pending dues from industrialists and farmers thus inviting protests.
Due to Covid-19 situation and agitation by industrialists, the government had suspended addition of fixed charges to the original bills of industries.
The company could start recovering the pending fixed charges in instalments from this month to meet the new target.
Similarly, the government had provided subsidy on temporary connections to farmers for agriculture. For such connections, one part of the fee has to be paid by the farmers themselves.
The West Discom has to collect a total of Rs 100 crore farmers from Malwa-Nimar regions. In last two months, farmers have had got money due to sale of soybean and other crops so the company may start recovery from them to meet the target.
Besides, the state government itself has refused to recover the outstanding dues on small connections till December.
According to the company officials, they had achieved a target of Rs 832 crore revenue collection in November, 2019. But this year, they say, the situation is very different due to Covid-19 so the target is not realistic.
30% decline in power-related complaints
Madhya Pradesh Western Region Power Distribution Company has claimed a significant 30 per cent decline in average daily complaints related to electricity.
West Discom chief general manager Santosh Tagore said that they received an average of
2,500 complaints daily from all 15 districts in Malwa-Nimar region in the month of October. “November saw significant decline in the complaints. Till November 19, an average of 1,635 complaints have been received,” he said.
The complaints are often related to electricity supply, bill correction, voltage, transformer, bill not received, etc.
In last 24 hours, Tagore said, they received 900 complaints from Indore district, 261 from Ujjain district, 68 from Khargone, 60 from Dewas and 56 from Ratlam district. “60 per cent of supply-related complaints are being identified in just one hour. Tagore stated that after resolving every complaint lodged with Central Call Center 1912, feedback is being taken by calling the consumer,” he added.
