Tata Power will offer clean and green energy products and solutions to the people of Odisha, a top official of the power utility said. CEO & MD, Tata Power, Praveer Sinha said this while attending the India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) organized Distribution Utility Meet.
“Odisha is the best model of Public-Private Partnership that is yielding results to the customers of the state. Odisha’s electricity distribution is going through a commendable transformation in a short span of time,” Sinha told reporters. Replying to a question to offer clean and green energy products and solutions to the people of Odisha, he said the Tata Power is planning to set-up EV charging stations to promote clean mobility across the state. In order to boost the use of renewable energy, TP Discoms will offer rooftop solar installation, solar pumps and home automation solutions, he said.
Stating that Odisha’s electricity distribution is going through a commendable transformation in a short span of time, Sinha said distribution companies here have been able to not only reduce the AT&C losses, but there has also been an improvement in the reliability and customer connects. While, many of the legacy issues faced by the customers have been sorted, the official said nearly 20 lakh non-working meters have been replaced by Tata Power-led discoms. In Odisha, the four discoms—TPCODL, TPNODL, TPSODL, and TPWODL, are supplying power to over 9.5 million consumers.
This apart, Tata Power has implemented the deployment of Smart Grid Technologies across the discoms resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction across the segments. Discoms are focusing on the entire customer journey right from getting connection to metering to billing to complaint redressal to ease of bill payment. Discoms have integrated technology in their services to serve customers well, he said.
“Our distribution business in Odisha, which we took over progressively in the last two years, has done exceedingly well. All four Tata Power discoms are providing excellent service to the customers,” he said.Asked about the measures taking by the discoms run by Tata Power, Sinha said the distribution companies have taken up large scale network augmentation and proactive maintenance of power supply network to improve reliability resulting in 30-40 per cent reduction in feeder tripping.
Central Power System Control Centres(CPSCCs) have been set up in all Discoms for real time monitoring and dynamic power management.To ensure error-free billing, Optical Character Read (OCR) technology has been implemented.Around 2000 Fuse Call Centres (FCCs) across the state have been upgraded to better serve rural customers. FCCs comprise customised mobile based application for immediate information flow from customer to lineman and section In-charge, he said.
TP Discoms have also launched a women empowerment programme called Abha Shakti under which members of the women Self Help Groups (SGHs) have been trained to become social change agents. The members of Abha Shakti have been provided with livelihood skills through digital tech and knowledge of power discoms’ consumer-centric operation like meter reading, billing, and collection (MBC) activities, thus enabling them to become self-employed, Sinha said.
