Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik releases a souvenir on the occasion of the 16th foundation day of the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission at Bhubaneswar on Monday. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 1: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today asked the power distribution companies to improve their performance by reducing losses, enhancing the quality of power supply and addressing the consumers’ grievances on priority basis.

Though power reforms started in the late 1990s, the transmission and distribution losses have not come down in expected measure. The losses hover around 39 per cent.

Inaugurating the workshop on technology enabling the transformation of power distribution on the occasion of the 16th foundation day celebration of the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission, Naveen said the state government was according importance to system improvement.

“The state is implementing the capital expenditure programme to improve electricity distribution for Rs 2,400 crore with counterpart funding from the distribution companies which would result in substantial improvement in the infrastructure and reduction of aggregate technical and commercial losses,” he said. To stop power pilferage, the state government has decided to establish 16 more energy police stations soon. This is in addition to the 18 announced earlier.

Naveen said another important issue was the frequent electrical accidents causing death of humans and of animals. “The lack of maintenance of distribution network on time coupled with poor awareness about the safety aspects often lead to electrical accidents. There should be regular inspection of the distribution network and timely maintenance of the lines and sub-stations,” he said.

The state government recently provided Rs 20 crore to upgrade the distribution network in certain specific elephant corridors to prevent electrocution of the jumbos. It had also decided to provide funds to ensure uninterrupted quality supply of power to important medical institutions such as, government medical colleges and hospitals and district headquarters hospitals, Naveen said.

The chief minister said distribution utilities had to enhance the reliability of their network and curtail aggregate technical and commercial losses. “These can be achieved through process improvement and adoption of the advanced technologies,” he said. Joint secretary of the ministry of power Devinder Singh said: “Orissa’s demand to include it under the Accelerated Power and Reform Programme will be looked into. A draft plan has been prepared and will soon be submitted before the Union cabinet. The entire process will take another three months.”