Dr Asangba Tzudir
To tackle the rampant power theft in Dimapur, the Principal Secretary of Power department has stated recently that the power department will “pull the administrative mechanism” by bringing in the police forces to take action on defaulters as per the Electricity Act 2003.
While this is done to curb the menace of power theft, the poor percentage of revenue generation which is said to be not even 50% is a serious concern in the face of ever increasing consumers. While power theft is a serious offence, the present move of setting up a special team led by Additional Secretary Mohammed Ali to bring in police forces looks set to ‘criminalize’ the power thieves. One can only hope that this time around, it is action oriented if revenue generation is to improve.
However, the poor revenue generation needs to look beyond power thefts where meter is either tampered or the mains bypass the meter. This issue is placed at a threshold where generally the poor who really cannot pay the power bills are ‘compelled’ to commit power theft while a certain class of the ‘rich’ do not pay. In short electricity theft and non-payment of bills has become a class issue. Addressing this issue requires understanding the realities within which ‘things’ operate and have allowed to normalize. While power theft is a serious crime and calls for criminalization, non-payment of power bills is equally culpable, for both are thieves’ of different kinds. And these are reasons for the accumulation of unrealized arrears.
On the poor revenue generation, this paper had earlier highlighted in detail about the hundreds of Crores in unrealized revenue, and the defaulters are none other than a long list of State Government Departments topped by Police (Rs. 3,45,42,236.892); District Administration (Rs. 3,43,49,160.92) and Industries and commerce (Rs. 2,99,80,575.86.) Besides the non-payment of bills by individuals the hundreds of crores of rupees in arrears have not helped the cause of revenue generation.
There may also be the practice of writing off a portion of the outstanding bills from consumers whose bills have accumulated over time leading to huge unrealized revenue, and this is one aspect where the department concerned should ensure that all outstanding dues are paid. That, it is also the bounden duty of the consumer to pay what has been consumed unless in cases where consumers are being over charged due to reasons of faulty meter reading. Further, metering and billing is another aspect where the department concerned is called for sincerity. Often billing is randomly done based on the previous months meter reading. It is also the duty of the consumer to keep a check and provide the meter reading to the department while preparing bills. This facility comes under “Trusted Consumer Meter Reading” in the DoPN web portal where a specific time slot from 1st to 10th of every month is being provided for the consumers to manually provide their own energy readings and accordingly the department will make the bills for onward payment by the consumer.
With rapid urbanization and expansion of township, the demand for power has been on the rise and in order to meet the growing demands revenue generation needs to be maximized by ensuring that every consumer is metered and also bills are paid. With electricity having made lives more easy and comfortable, the consumers - rich and poor, so also the defaulting govt. departments should understand the moral responsibility, that binds by duty to pay the bills. And a civilized society has no place for power theft.
(Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
