Power distribution companies in the state - North Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited - have come up with a scheme to reward field officials who generate revenue beyond their target.

The revenue target is set after taking the average of revenue collected in the past two months.

Of the 68 divisions for power distribution work in Bihar headed by executive engineer-rank officers, 22 have opted for this scheme launched this month. The scheme is voluntary.

For reward, the collection must be at least 10 per cent more than their monthly target for two consecutive months.

"If a division that has opted for the incentive scheme generates at least Rs 11 crore against a monthly target of Rs 10 crore, which is 10 per cent more than the target, for two consecutive months, its officials become eligible for the cash reward," said an official of South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited.

The incentive will be 20 per cent of the amount collected above the target.

"If a division has collected Rs 12 crore in a month against a target of Rs 10 crore, the field officials would be entitled to cash reward of Rs 40 lakh, which is 20 per cent of Rs 2 crore," explained the official.

Nine per cent of the reward will go to the executive engineer heading the division, 16 per cent will be distributed among the assistant engineers, and 49 per cent will go to the junior engineers. Similarly, a fixed percentage of the incentive has been earmarked for assistant and junior engineers looking after the revenue side, IT managers and IT assistants among others.

An executive engineer heads a division, which is divided into sub-divisions headed by assistant engineers. Each sub-division is divided into sections headed by junior engineers. There are 68 divisions, 150 sub-divisions and around 650 sections for power distribution work in Bihar.

Five per cent of the incentive would be earmarked as pool fund, which would be at the discretion of the executive engineer for distribution among linesmen and disconnection team among other staff.

The scheme also offers executive engineers to have teams of their choice if they have valid reason to substantiate the poor performance of any team member.

The incentive scheme, which will run from this month to July 2018 to begin with, also comes with a disincentive - denying annual increment to team members for failure to meet the revenue target for two consecutive months.

The scheme is meant to enhance revenue generation and bring down the aggregate transmission and commercial losses.

Power companies spend around Rs 900 crore every month, of which around Rs 800 crore goes for power purchase and Rs 100 crore goes towards meeting recurring expenses. The power companies need around Rs 10,800 crore annually, but generate revenue of around Rs 7,500 crore.

The state government has announced that it would give Rs 2,952 crore as assistance to meet the cost of subsidy given to different categories of consumers and a financial help of Rs 1,467 crore to power companies to meet the aggregate, technical and commercial losses.