SMOOTH FLOW
Residents can expect a marked improvement in the quality of service they get from Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu), the agency responsible for power distribution work in the state capital.
Bosses in the South Bihar Power Distribution Company Limited (SBPDCL) have asked Pesu to improve on two fronts - the number of interruptions in the power supply and the duration of power cuts.
Known as system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI), the number of interruption denotes the frequency of power cut in a month. In case of Patna, SAIFI stood at 25.87 in 2016-17 i.e. power cuts used to take place around 25 times in a month during the period on an average.
As far as the duration of power outage is concerned, it is referred to as system average interruption duration index (SAIDI) in official parlance and in 2016-17, the average of total duration of power outage in a month used to be 12.93 hours.
'We have directed the Pesu team to reduce SAIFI and SAIDI at least by 25 per cent in the current fiscal (2017-18),' a senior SBPDCL official told The Telegraph.
The Pesu officials seem to be seized with the directions . 'We have already minimised the number of shutdowns to bring down SAIFI,' a senior Pesu official said.
He added that steps had also been taken to upgrade the existing power distribution system in such a way that in case of any fault, the power outage remained effective in a limited area only and not the whole locality . The official claimed that Pesu was confident of achieving the target without any difficulty.
The SAIFI of Pesu has witnessed a sharp decline in the past few years. It was 65.14 in 2014-15 and was brought down to 44.25 in 2015-16. On bringing down SAIDI, another senior Pesu official said emphasis was being laid to restore supply in case of local faults.
A power cut is recorded only if the power supply remains out of place for at least five minutes. 'We have developed a mechanism which allows us to get quick information about faults in the distribution system. Also our special teams work round-the-clock for repairing faults to minimise the power cut duration,' said this official.
Pesu's performance on the SAIDI front too has improved - it was 62.96 hours in 2014-15 and came down to 29.5 hours in 2015-16.
Commenting on the service being provided by Pesu at present, Manorama Narayan, a housewife from Ashiana Nagar , said: 'I don't know much about the technicalities, but one thing is clear. Pesu field personnel have become more responsive and they generally attend to our complaints within a short time. Things were not the same two years ago.'
Amid its effort on quality, Pesu has also launched a special drive to provide legal power connection to all those who are using power from its distribution lines.
'So far we have detected 4,000 such cases in which power was being used without taking a proper connection. We persuaded all such people to take a legal connection and all of them complied with,' said a Pesu official and added that the undertaking was aiming to provide at least 10,000 more such connections in the current year.
Another special drive has been launched to pursue consumers to make timely payment of bill .
'Our average monthly collection hovered around Rs 125 crore in the first four months of the current fiscal (April-July) and we are hoping to touch Rs 1,500 crore revenue generation in the current fiscal,' said a Pesu official who deals with financial matters.
In 2016-17, the average monthly collection of Pesu was less than Rs 100 crore and the undertaking, with a consumer base of about 5 lakh, had generated revenue of Rs 1158.49 crore.