Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mechanism is soon going to cover lakhs of power consumers of Jharkhand. To begin with the Government has given a go ahead to the idea for the consumers of Ranchi and Jamshedpur on pilot basis.
Direction in this regard has been given by Chief Minister Raghubar Das during a review of Energy Department on Thursday which has been aimed to prevent misuse of power.
“It has been decided in the meeting that consumers should pay actual cost of power generation and the subsidy would be later debited to their accounts through DBT. This would make the consumers realise about the actual power generation cost and in a sense would prevent them from misusing electricity,” said a senior official of Energy Department. This apart, metering at power transformers would also take place to pinpoint theft.
The CM also instructed the officials to complete underground cabling exercise in Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, Boakro and Deoghar before March 2018 and complete coding of all the transforms so that their management can be made hustle-free. He was also particular about making sure uninterrupted power supply by 2018 and to complete all necessary infrastructures for that on PPP mode.
Also, Jharkhand Vidhyut Vitran Nigam limited (JVVNl) and Jharkhand Vidhyut Sancharan Nigam limited (JVSNl) have in the meeting flagged some serious issues related to meet their financial needs. “Since there are several projects undergoing to improve power distribution and transmission network in the State more fund is required. The demand has been placed besides a detailed presentation before the Chief Minister,” said JVVNl Managing Director Rahul Purwar.
Both the companies are facing massive resource gap which is in the tune of about Rs 13000 crore for the JVSNl and approximately Rs 14000 crore for the JVVNl. “In the distribution company we have tied fund of approximately Rs 9500 crore and for transmission company funding can be made through the World Bank, NABARD and also from the State Government,” added Purwar. Rs 1183 crore has been provided to PGCIl for various grid completion.
To ease the transmission exercise and get speedy forest clearances it has been decided to appoint any retired forest official as nodal officer. Various other projects related to transmission and distribution came for review in the meeting in which Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma and Principal Secretary to the CM Sanjay Kumar besides Purwar were present. The Department in its part assured to complete the electrification exercise in rest 774 villages under DDUGJY by December, 2016.