The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BHUBANESWAR, SEPT 15 2022
Tata Power Odisha Discoms, serving 9 million customers across the state, are fully committed to realise the Odisha Government’s vision of Make in Odisha through reliable and quality power supply.
Since its takeover of Odisha Discoms, in the past two years, the company has made significant strides in various aspects of power distribution to enhance reliability of electricity supply.
“We have done a complete analysis of the State’s power supply network and identified the major issues and upgradation requirements that are helping us in ensuring reliable power supply in the State. We are now stepping up our capex investment to ensure uninterrupted power supply to our consumers including industrial and commercial establishments,” said Sanjay Banga, President – T&D, Tata Power.
The company has committed a capex of approximately Rs. 5000 crore over the next five years covering the realms of network & infrastructure improvement and augmentation, technical integration, customer services, safety et al.
Strengthening the ‘Make in Odisha’ vision one notch further, the Tata Power Odisha Discoms will soon be in a position to provide new industrial connections in a week to 10 days’ time based on availability of network, thus supporting the ease of doing business in the state. The Company has already extended the facility of availing new service connection through Whatsapp and missed call services to its customers.
The Odisha Discoms have also rolled out smart metering drives for industrial, commercial and Government consumers. This initiative will lead to better consumption analytics resulting in customised service and energy optimisation among the high consumption category customers. These smart meters are NABL accredited and BIS certified and are supplied by leading smart meter manufacturers of the country.
The Discoms are thankful to OERC for rationalising the industrial tariff in the last tariff order. The Discoms believe industrial tariff will further go down in the coming years because of integration of more renewable power purchase (RPO) compliance.
Tata Power is committed to integrate power generated from solar and wind into the energy mix. This will help the industries in Odisha meet their goals of sustainable and green power. The AT&C loss reduction as per the trajectory committed to OERC will further help in tariff reduction. Thus making Odisha one of the most sought after States by leading industry players.
To manage the growing network and to ensure reliable customer service, Tata power Discoms have spruced up the total work force by hiring more than 2000 locals directly and a 20,000 strong manpower indirectly for maintenance, projects and meter replacement work resulting in higher employment creation for locals.
Tata Power Odisha Discoms stand confident of bringing down the overall AT&C loss level in the range of 10-12% in the coming years, thus making the distribution sector competitive at the national level. Besides service to the industrial category, the Discoms are also committed to electrify the un-electrified households across the State under the State Government’s Vidyut Kutir Yojana and ensure ease of living besides ease of doing business.
“We are committed to quality and reliable power supply in Odisha, which will play a major support to the Make in Odisha vision by ensuring that the industrial sector operating in the State or aspiring to operate here in future get world class electricity infrastructure and service,” added Banga.
