Patna: Encouraged by the growing number of consumers who pay electricity bill online, the power distribution companies - North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (NBPDCL) and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) - are going to launch a special drive to encourage more consumers to pay their bills online.

"We are going to launch a special drive during which special advertisements will be there to educate people about its benefits, particularly the 2.5 per cent rebate which they get for making online payments," NBPDCL managing director S.K.R. Pudakalkatti said. He said the mobile app Bihar Bijli Bill Pay (BBBP) - using which consumers could pay their bills easily - had been revamped.

In 2016-17, a total of 11.16 lakh consumers paid electricity bills using the online option, leading to deposition of Rs 350.81 crore in the distribution companies' kitty. This number jumped to 29.64 lakh in 27-18 and the amount deposited was Rs 1098.63 crore. In the first two months (April and May) of the current fiscal (2018-19), 7.18 lakh consumers paid power bill online, depositing Rs 269.12 crore in total.

The NBPDCL MD said online payment not only benefits power consumers but also power companies by saving manpower behind counter collection centres which can be used for other vital work and also enables power companies to make payment for power purchase on time.

Benefits that power companies earn on timely payment of power purchase bills is also passed on to its consumers. It also helps in timely completion of power projects.

In a bid to reduce the manpower consumption in bill collection, the power companies have also decided to install anytime payment (ATP) machines in all the district headquarters. "We intend to start this facility within a month," Pudakalkatti said.

At present only Patna consumers have this facility and 19 ATP machines are functional in the capital.

Energy distribution

The Patna electric supply undertaking (Pesu), which looks after power distribution in Patna and its fringes, is going to augment its distribution system to ensure better availability of power, its general manager Dilip Kumar Singh said on Friday.

As per plan, Pesu will augment the capacity of some of its existing power sub-stations and set up new sub-stations to augment distribution capacity from 1,125-1,440MW.

At present, Patna consumes around 580MW of power daily and going by past trend it is expected to add almost 40-50 mW yearly. "Even though the existing distribution system is capable of handling peak load demand,we keep additional capacity to meet any eventuality, particularly in case of breakdown in a power sub-station, the load is transferred to the adjoining PSS to ensure uninterrupted power supply to consumers," said the PESU GM and added that this year the peak demand in Patna crossed 600MW for the first time and on June 20 610MW was supplied to consumers.

As far as the power sub-stations are concerned, Pesu at present supplies power to consumers through 51 such sub-stations and the expansion plan entails adding another 18 such sub-stations in the coming months.

To ensure more power to Patna, three new grids are also being set up at Bakhtiarpur, Digha and Jakkanpur. At present Patna gets power from grids at Fatuha, Sampatchak, Karbigahiya, Gaighat, Mithapur, Katra, Jakkanpur, Digha and Khagaul. Singh said availability of more grids will help add more distribution lines and reduce load.

Replying to a query about frequent tripping of power in different areas of the city, Singh said that in majority of cases the tripping took place due to transient nature of faults, which are addressed within minutes and also special patrolling teams had been deputed to keep tab on distribution lines to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the consumers.