Vidyut Bhavan

Patna, Sept. 21: The weeklong agitation by power employees has adversely affected various schemes and projects, especially revenue collection.

According to the revenue collection target set by Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Ltd, the distribution companies — North Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd — had to collect Rs 350 crore from across the state in September but the employees’ absence from work is likely to affect the target by Rs 100 crore.

The employees’ strike, which began on September 13 after police resorted to lathicharge, was lifted yesterday after the state government agreed to the protesters’ demands.

Sources said on an average, the Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Ltd spends Rs 600 crore every month on purchasing power, establishment cost and others. It manages to collect Rs 250 crore as revenue per month, though.

The power company has set a target of increasing its revenue to Rs 400 crore by the end of the current fiscal. September’s revenue target for the entire state was Rs 350 crore.

Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu), on the other hand, was given a revenue target of Rs 120 crore for September.

The energy department’s secretary and chairperson-cum-managing director of Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Ltd, Sandeep Poundrik, during a review meeting with Pesu’s top officials in the first week of September, fixed the new target of Rs 120 crore after the undertaking crossed the revenue collection of Rs 100 crore in August for the first time.

Sources said the revenue collection could hardly touch the Rs 90 crore-mark in September because of the employees abstaining from work from September 13 to 20.

However, the Power Engineers’ Service Association (Pesa) general secretary and Vidyut Kamgar Padadhikari Abhiyanta Sanyukta Sangharsh Morcha spokesperson, Ashwini Kumar, told The Telegraph: “There has been an adverse impact on the work in the past week. We will make up for the losses in the remaining 10 days of the month. As far as revenue collection is concerned, the employees have started putting in extra hours and we will achieve the target.”

Kumar admitted that the work in the planning department of the power company was affected but added that it would be taken care of and no work would be kept pending for the next month.

At present, planning on around a dozen projects is underway, sources said, adding that the department is in charge of preparing the outline of projects and the manner in which those would be implemented.

The work on replacing old and dilapidated wires, installing meters and rural electrification, have also been affected, sources said.