Empowering people through power sector

 

Electricity has become one of our basic needs and it is almost difficult to imagine life without electricity. It has not just an essential need of a household but it is essential for various business enterprises, agriculture and almost all livelihood sectors. Therefore it would not be reasonable to call electricity, a luxury product. The power industry consists of 3 phases, production, Transmission and Distribution. In the distribution phase electricity is distributed to consumers under various schemes and connection types. These consumers then pay their bill based on the reading on their meter and based on their connection type and scheme. Usually these three phases in power sector have different players or agencies. In western Odisha, the distribution was managed by WESCO but it was handed over to Tata Power and Tata Power Western Odisha Distribution Limited (TPWODL) was established. The biggest challenge in distribution sector is to take accurate reading and collect dues in time without incurring losses. For the consumers this often leads to unjustified bills much higher than their actual consumption. Sometimes they do not even get a bill at all.

Niyatee Foundation in collaboration with TPWODL chalked out a new strategy to carry out the billing and collection activities. Instead of employing personal randomly, we organize selection camp within each community and select youths and SHG member for the task. After providing them with necessary training and all equipment, they are deployed in their own local community for meter reading and fee collection. To ensure easy access for consumers, we have 2 teams, a team goes door to door and a counter agent who receives via cash or online mode. To ensure that no consumer faces any issue related to their bills, we also select and deploy another special team to carry out a survey in each household and based on their report necessary intervention is initiated by TPWODL, including a bill revision camp. These locally recruited agents receive commission on each assignment they perform, e.g. Meter reading, collection or survey and can earn up to 12,000 a month. Through this model, we are able to convert the power sector from just a service delivery enterprise to an employment generator.