CHANDIGARH, July 23- All General Managers,Operations, of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) have been directed to draw action plans to replace all the defective meters in their respective circles.
While stating this today, Director, DHBVN, V. K. Chaudhary said that an aggressive campaign would be launched to change defective meters and relocate meters outside the consumer premises. The Discom has started the process of procuring new single and three phase energy meters and it has been decided to change all defective meters in a phased manner. The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission has also directed the Discoms to immediately change the defective meters.
He said that the Discom plans to do away with the manual meter reading in phased manner and reading of meters would be taken through Common Meter Reading Instrument (CMRI). Manual meter reading and billing are major sources of revenue leakage. Measures would be taken to completely eliminate manual intervention in meter reading. For all consumers above 10 KW of connected load, Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) has been initiated. At present all high tension industrial connections are being read through AMR. For other consumers below10 KW load, meters with optical port, facilitating reading through MRI, are being procured so as to eliminate manual meter reading and plug revenue leakage. Remote reading through data concentrator units is also being planned.
The Director said that the energy meters of the consumers are being relocated outside the premises in urban as well as rural areas. Over 40 per cent meters in urban area and 10 per cent meters in rural area are already out of their premises. All the meters in towns will be relocated from houses to outside on poles or pillar boxes within next six months. Meters in all villages are planned to be shifted to Pillar Boxes set up on ‘Phirnies’, the ring main way. The Pillar Box based distribution system is planned to be erected in 1000 villages by the end December this year.
He said that the villages which opt and get installed Pillar Box System of power distribution are being supplied power round-the-clock. As many as 12 villages have already started enjoying the facility. About 325 villages have opted for the scheme out of which work orders for 253 villages have been released and work in 66 villages has already been started.
An incentive scheme has also been implemented in the villages having the Pillar Box System of power distribution. Under this scheme, the defaulter consumers can get their defaulting amount settled by paying for only 40 units of electricity per month per kilowatt load without any surcharge. Therefore, a defaulter consumer can get settled the arrears by paying merely Rs. 1440 per annum per kilowatt load.