Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited

Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited

Type	Government owned
Industry	Electricity Distribution
Founded	June 06, 2005 (Carved out of MSEB)
Headquarters	Mumbai, India
Area served	Maharashtra
Key people	Shri. Ajoy Mehta Chairman Cum Managing Director
Products	Electricity
Revenue	Rs. 30,000 Crores for 2010-11 [1 crore=10 Million INR]
Employees	75900(2010)
Parent	Government Of Maharashtra
Website	http://www.mahadiscom.in

Mahavitaran (महावितरण) or Mahadiscom (Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited - MSEDCL) controlled by Government of Maharashtra, is a public sector company which distributes electricity to all regions of the state; except Mumbai city and the most part of its suburban region, where BEST (Bombay Electric Suppler and Transport) and Reliance Energy, TATA Power, are the only distributors.

On June 4, 2005, in accordance with Electricity Act, 2003 of Government of India, the old state owned company MSEB Maharashtra State Electricity Board was split into three companies: Mahanirmiti (महानिर्मिती) or Mahagenco (Maharashtra State Electricity Generation Company); Mahavahan (महावहन) or Mahatransco (Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company); and Mahavitaran . Mahavitaran is responsible for distribution of electricity throughout the state by buying power from either Mahanirmiti , Captive Power Plants or from other State Electricity Boards and Private sector power generation companies. An holding entity 'MSEB Holding Company' was created, holds all the stake in these three companies.

Consumer Base

MSEDCL supplies electricity to a staggering 1.86 crore consumers across the categories all over Maharashtra excluding the island city of Mumbai. There are about 1.31 crore residential, 30 lakh agricultural, 13.46 lakh commercial and 2.5 lakh industrial consumers in MSEDCL area which fetch an annual revenue of about Rs. 33,000 crore.

Sources of power

MSEDCL’s sources of power include thermal, hydro, gas and non conventional sources like solar, wind, bagasse etc. apart from hydro power of Koyna. Thermal power constitutes the major share which it gets from Mahagenco projects, Central Sector projects and RGPPL.

Infrastructure

In terms of infrastructure, MSEDCL operates a vast far flung network consisting of 33 KV, 22 KV & 11 KV lines, sub-stations and distribution transformers spread over 3.08 km² geographical area of Maharashtra covering 41,015 villages and 457 towns. It has 1947 sub-stations (33 kV) with 49,000 MVA of transformation capacity, 10,334 HV feeders, and several thousand circuit km of HT and LT lines.

Human Resource Development

MSEDCL has a workforce of about 76,000 employees. This force is the real asset of the company . The welfare and well being of this asset has been given top priority by the company. As such it has enhanced the scope of training facilities to a great extent. In addition to the existing 4 training centers, MSEDCL has recently^[when?] established well equipped 25 training centers at Circle offices which impart necessary training to line staff. Every year about 20000 employees are put through refresher/professional/HR trainings. Safety is given special importance and safety training is imparted to line staff on regular basis. Engineers are also deputed to various other well reputed training centers outside Maharashtra for training under MDP module and also deputed for training under DRUM Project of USAID on regular basis.

Social Responsibility

In last 2 years about 2000 wards of deceased employees have been provided with jobs. Two ITIs at Vaijapur (Dist. Aurangabad) and Kalyan have been adopted to improve facilities there to help the local population.

Empowering Women Employees

Ever increasing number of female engineers in the workforce of MSEDCL necessitated the thought of their empowerment. A novel idea of formation of all women’s squads popularly known as Damini Pathaks is being implemented. A Damini Pathak, headed by a local female engineer and assisted by 2-3 outsourced female employees, equipped with digital camera, a security guard in uniform and a vehicle has been established at each of the Circle offices under the leadership of respective Superintending Engineers. The task assigned to these squads is to undertake surprise checks of the photo meter readings in their area. The aim of the exercise is to address the consumer complaints regarding photo meter reading. The members of the squad visit the households between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when generally housewives are present at homes. The squads are working satisfactorily and results are encouraging.

Mahila Bachat Gat

We do come across the instances of women’s self help groups like Mahila Bachat Gats helping poor and needy women earn their livelihood through production and marketing of home products. MSEDCL thought to exploit the vast woman power by offering them some good opportunities on bigger scale. It offered the Mahila Bachat Gats across the state to come forward and undertake the work of distribution of energy bills. This is indeed a great initiative towards empowering women. Accordingly, some of the Mahila Bachat Gats have already taken up the said works at various places in the State and an overall response is quite encouraging. It is hoped that the women engaged in this would experience significant rise in their daily earnings.

Important projects

To overcome the power crisis and improve consumer services MSEDCL made in-depth study involving sub- division wise research of distribution network and planned ambitious projects. They include :

Infra- Plan : MSEDCL’s existing network handles a load of about 10,000 to 11,000 MW. By 2012, there will be an addition of another 10,000 MW in the system. With a view to cater future load, provide quality, reliable energy supply and reduce losses MSEDCL formulated a Rs. 11000 crore infrastructure plan. The plan envisages erection and commissioning of 586 sub-stations, 52351 circuit kilometers of HT lines, 58,629 distribution transformers besides augmentation of existing network. MSEB had erected 1846 sub-stations during its lifetime, whereas MSEDCL aims to construct 586 sub stations in just 2 years. A leap forward in the direction of infrastructure development. The project is being implemented on total turn-key basis and through 119 DPRs. Orders of about Rs. 9189 crore have already been placed on various agencies. Earlier capital investment for infrastructure development was a paltry sum of Rs. 200 to 300 crore per year. The new infrastructure with augmentation and renovation of the distribution network will revolutionize the quality and reliability of supply.

Load Management : MSEDCL has been implementing long term Load Management schemes to reduce load shedding. Feeder separation is one such long term scheme in which agriculture feeders are carved out. This not only helps load management but also strengthens the infrastructure and reduces technical losses. MSEDCL has also implemented Single Phasing Scheme in some parts of Maharashtra. Currently rural areas face 8.30 to 11 hours of load shedding a day which is decided by MERC. However, the load shedding hours have been almost halved in about 24,461 villages that have been covered so far under these schemes. The load shedding duration of these villages has come down to 2.00 to 5.45 hours which is on par with urban areas. The project cost of these schemes is Rs. 3233 crore.

Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidhutikarn Yojana (RGGVY) : This is a flagship scheme of Govt. of India. There are 4,709 villages and 13,44,087 identified BPL households targeted to be electrified under this scheme. MSEDCL had prepared proposals for 34 schemes costing Rs. 829 crore for 33 districts of Maharashtra. Maharashtra has been implementing the scheme and has spent Rs. 443 crore so for. Connections to 905541 BPL households have been released and 4243 villages electrified under the scheme. BPL families are provided with 1.5 point power connections at a nominal charge of Rs.15/- each and the villages are electrified as per new definition under this scheme.

Restructured – Accelerated Power Development & Reforms Programme (R-APDRP): R-APDRP is a flagship scheme sponsored by Govt. of India and financed by Power Finance Corporation of India (PFC). There are 134 towns having population more than 30,000 as per 2001 census selected in Maharashtra under this scheme. The scheme is being implemented in two phases – Part-A and Part-B. Creation of IT infrastructure and allied works are included in Part-A for which a turn key contract for 95 towns has been awarded to M/s.Larsen and Tubro Ltd. while M/s Spanco Ltd has been awarded the Part 'A' contract for remaining 35 towns. On completion of Part-A, the works under Part-B which include renovation and modernization of distribution network, load bifurcation,load balancing, arial bunched conductoring, HVDS, capacitor bank etc. will be taken up. Distribution loss in R-APDRP towns is targeted to be reduced to 15%.

Major Achievements Post Restructuring

Energisation of Agricultural Pumps : Maharastra has a record number, highest as compared to any state, of agricultural pumps energized so far. The number is about 30 lakhs. Earlier, there used to be a long list of pending applications and the farmers used to wait for years together for supply. The issue was addressed in a proper perspective by MSEDCL. Nowadays about 1 lakh agricultural pumps are energized every year. MSEDCL, in a year or two, would be in a position to grant agricultural connections on demand on par with other categories of consumers.

Loss Reduction

In just 5 years, MSEDCL reduced distribution losses from 35 % to 20 % through various drives such as :

Anti theft drive : This is being implemented on regular basis. MSEDCL has established 43 flying squads and 6 dedicated police stations functioning under vigilance department to detect and handle power theft cases quickly.

Meter shifting : For many consumers, meters were installed in hard-to-access places, making theft easy to conceal. MSEDCL, therefore, decided to shift all meters to the front of buildings to make them as conspicuous as possible. This project is currently in progress on a large scale.

Mass Meter Replacement Project : MSEDCL has decided to replace all the meters which have been in service for last 10 years and more under mass meter replacement programme. It is planned to replace all the electro mechanical meters with static ones. A process has already been initiated for purchasing about 30 lakh meters for the purpose. This is a huge project which will definitely lead to increase in metered sale.

Energy Accounting : MSEDCL has undertaken accurate energy accounting through various methods such as :

Feeder Metering :' MSEDCL plans to install high quality meters at all necessary system points, including interconnecting points. Feeder metering of all 10,240 feeders in complete and again, photo reading of these feeder meters are taken.

DTC Metering : There are in all 2,84,633 Distribution Transformer Centers(DTCs) in operation, out of which about 1.51 Lakh DTCs have already been metered.

Distribution Franchisee : Bhiwandi, a powerloom city, also known as the Manchester of India, had typical problems like rampant theft and non-payment. MSEDCL opted for a input based franchisee model for electricity distribution. It has handed over Bhiwandi Circle to M/S Torrent Power on 26 January 2007. This experiment proved to be very successful and a trend setter in power distribution sector of the Country. Recently^[when?] the Company has appointed Distribution Franchisees for Aurangabad Urban I & II Divisions of Aurangabad Urban Circle and Gandhibag, Civil Lines and Mahal Divisions of Nagpur Urban Circle.

Zero Load Shedding Model

Zero Load Shedding Model is implemented at certain places with the active participation of local citizens through consumer groups and people-s representatives. The mechanism is extremely transparent and is prior approved by the Regulator. In this model a costly power to the extent of shortfall is arranged for which a reliability charge is levied upon the local consumers. Beginning from Pune,the Model was under implementation in Navi Mumbai, Thane,Pen and Baramati also. Of late MSEDCL itself filed a petition before the MERC for implementing Zero Load Shedding Model at all the Headquarters of Revenue Divisions - Nagpur, Amravati, Navi Mumbai ,Pune and Aurangabad. MERC approved the proposal and the model is under implementation at these headquarters with effect from Dec. 2009. MSEDCL has planned to extend it further to district headquarters, taluka headquarters and so on.

It is of course, an entirely different thing that the Model is unsuccessful so far due to the heavy load shedding implemented in areas like Kalyan, Bhiwandi, Pune, Thane and other areas^{[1] [2]} . It is further hampered by "Line Problems" due to which city specific areas experience power cuts of as long as 7 to 10 hours. A number of complaints registered by the users have gone unanswered^{[3] [4]}. The company has paid no heed to many complaints and many consumer forums are abuzz with anger against the irregular and erratic load shedding timing. Incidentally Mumbai is excluded from Load Shedding for the major part, expecting the common folk to sacrifice their rights to proper and equal power distrubition, to satisfy the needs of celebrities and politicians and businessmen who run bills into lakhs yet get 24 hour electricity^[5] without any fine for extra usage like the common public is fined for^[6] .

Improvement In Consumer Services

Online bill payment facility has been made available for all LT consumers across the state by commissioning own Payment Gateway on MSEDCL website www.mahadiscom.in. Earlier the facility was available to People in Pune, Bhandup, Kalyan, Thane, Vashi, Kolhapur, Nashik, Aurangabad and Nagpur only. Consumer Facilitation Centers (CFCs) comprise of a single window system with a help desk for customers are put in place. The CFCs accept consumer complaints, application forms for new connections, meter change requests and name or address change forms etc. 6 State of the Art CFCs have been opened at Rastapeth Pune, GaneshKhind Pune, Nagpur, Amravati, Nanded and Baramati. More being planned. Small CFCs at 32 Circle headquarters have been established and more being established. 15 call centers have been established at the Municipal Corporations of kalyan, Bhandup, Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Kolhapur, Sangli, Akola, Solapur, Nanded, Dhule, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar and Amravati. Customers can receive their monthly bills via email by registering on MSEDCL’s website. Internal Complaints Redressal Units at all 40 Circles established. Consumers approach this platform for redressal of their complaints before going in appeal before Zonal Consumer Grievances Redressal Forums which are there at every Zonal Headquarter.

Power to all by 2012

In keeping with the national agenda of power to all by 2012, Maharashtra has already planned a massive capacity addition programme and also initiated process to tie up power from other sources. By December 2012 Maharashtra ill be a power surplus State.

See also

• Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission

References

1. ^ "Consumer Complaints Forum". http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/unrealistic-load-shedding-timings-c369952.html#c1174014. 
2. ^ "Mumbra City Portal". http://www.mumbracity.com/index.php/modules/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=335%3Ais-load-shedding-is-only-for-mumbra-kausa-&catid=43%3Anews&Itemid=247. 
3. ^ "Consumer Complaints Forum". http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/msedcl-pimpri-division-c462384.html. 
4. ^ "Consumer Complaints Forum". http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/msedcl-mahavitaran-c412875.html. 
5. ^ "News 24". http://www.news24online.com/Mukeshs-Antilla-consumed-Rs70L-electricity_News24_17890.aspx. 
6. ^ "MSEDCL Booklet". http://www.news24online.com/Mukeshs-Antilla-consumed-Rs70L-electricity_News24_17890.aspx. 

External links

• Official site
• www.msebindia.com Maharashtra State Electricity Board
• www.mahagenco.in Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited
• www.mahatransco.in Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Limited