Mumbai: Energy Minister Nitin Raut on Friday asked Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) to delegate powers to regional offices for timely execution of projects.
He said this during a powerpoint presentation here on progress of work in Aurangabad region, which was also attended by principal energy secretary in-charge Dinesh Waghmare, Aurangabad region managing director Sunil Chavan and others.
A statement issued by the minister's office said the regional offices would be delegated powers related to quantity freezing and time limit extensions in all projects, including integrated power development scheme,Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, RF Meter replacement and AG Solar.
Joint managing directors and regional directors would now monitor the projects for timely completion.
In 2016, four regional offices were carved out at Nagpur, Aurangabad, Pune and Kalyan for execution of projects on time and to provide quality services to consumers.
The regional offices at Kalyan and Aurangabad were to be headed by IAS officers as joint managing directors while regional offices at Pune and Nagpur were to be led by non IAS officers as regional directors.
However, it turned to be a futile exercise as MSEDCL did not delegate any power to joint managing directors and regional directors.
Joint managing directors and regional directors now have also been given power to refund electricity duty to industrial consumers.
In the meeting, Raut instructed speedy allocation of transformers under high voltage distribution system (HVDS) scheme for agriculture pump connections.
To reduce the time to replace failed transformers, he said comprehensive tenders must be invited, which would comprise replacement as well as providing oil.
At the same time, a policy would be framed to provide new service connections for agriculture pumps.
