Maharashtra government has ordered an inquiry against Torrent Power which is a distribution franchisee of the state-run MahaVitaran in the powerloom town Bhiwandi. A special committee, which is expected to be led by MahaVitaran's senior official, would conduct a probe into the alleged excess recovery from consumers, fast running of power meters, accidents and deaths due to system faults.
State energy minister Rajesh Tope told Business Standard "A committee will soon be set up and it will conduct hearing for the concerned parties within a month." Tope said the committee would also look into whether Torrent Power has violated stipulated rules and conditions with regard to its agreement with MahaVitaran.
Tope made the announcement after the issue was raised by the Congress legislators Sanjay Dutt and Bhai Jagtap in the state legislature. This is the maiden inquiry so far initiated by the state government since Torrent Power has launched its functioning as MahaVitaran's distribution franchisee for Bhiwandi circle since January 2007.Since takeover, the company has invested more than Rs 500 crore for systems improvement, bring down aggregate transmission and commercial and distribution losses and improve metering efficiency.
MahaVitaran official said of the 136 accidents only 40% were due to system faults. The official informed that it has already recovered necessary amount from Torrent Power towards subsidised power to powerlooms.
Torrent Power spokesman in its response said the T&D loss has been reduced from 42% to less than 18% and a result of that, planned load shedding has been reduced to 2 hrs 45 mins from more than 10 hours of daily load shedding at the time of takeover. Due to network improvement work, power reliability has improved considerably. "The company has taken action for removing the prevailing rampant illegal network, duplicate feeds and initiated strict actions against those who are not maintained the required clearance from the live network and forced them to stop the work. Torrent Power has also taken the legal actions against private operators involved in creating illegal network for their vested interest," the spokesman added.
Moreover, metering system has been improved through installation of high quality electronics meters manufactured by reputed meter manufacturers.
