Tata Steel subsidiary Jusco, which looks after municipal and other allied services in Jamshedpur, on Tuesday gifted the city a control centre for power services, aimed at making the electricity distribution network more efficient.

Anand Sen, president (TQM & Steel Business), Tata Steel, inaugurated the centre near the town electrical office in Bistupur in the presence of managing director of Jusco Ashish Mathur, its senior general manager Sharad Kumar and president of Jusco Shramik Union Raghunath Pandey.

Addressing the gathering, Sen spoke on how technology and innovation were changing the way services is delivered. He lauded the step taken by Jusco for customer convenience.

The civic utility wing of Tata Steel distributes power in 64sqkm of company command area. The electrical distribution network is spread across the city connecting approximately 500 high-tension installations. These installations include power substations, distribution substations, switch houses and others that supply power to consumers.

"In order to minimise the duration of power outages, these installations are required to be continuously monitored by collecting real-time information about their status. To improve the monitoring and control of town power distribution, we have implemented supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) systems for power distribution and management in Jamshedpur," said Jusco spokesperson Rajesh Rajan.

He explained that the present system of manual monitoring for any kind of interruption was both time-consuming and tedious.

"Scada is a real-time industrial process control system used to centrally monitor and control remote or local industrial equipment. In this technology, real-time data is available on load conditions, breaker status and voltage levels. With the help of the data, quick decisions on system operation and maintenance can be taken to reduce the power outage duration, which in turn will result in enhanced consumer satisfaction," he added.