LIST OF DIRECTIVES NOT FOLLOWED BY DISTRIBUTION AND RETAIL SUPPLY LICENSEE
The Commission in its ARR and Tariff Orders for Distribution and Retail Supply Business for the financial years 2000-01 and 2001-02, dated 22.12.2000 and 11.08.2001 respectively, had issued a number of directives to the Licensee. However, the Licensee has not yet complied with many directives. All such directives are given below:
1. The Commission had directed that unless the legality of formation of the Provident Fund Trust is established beyond doubt, the Commission would not allow any funding from the tariff revenue to be used for the trust. For this purpose, HVPNL had been directed to obtain a categorical confirmation from EPF Commissioner that HVPNL is not covered under EPF & Miscellaneous Provision Act 1952. HVPNL has not been able to obtain such confirmation from the EPF Commissioner.
2. HVPNL had been directed to prepare norms for R&M stores and submit it for Commission’s approval. The Licensee was expected to provide an age-wise break-up of capital, R&M and other stores. The Commission had also directed that those items that had not moved for more than 3 years and the unserviceable items should be separately listed. The Licensee was expected to indicate the manner in which these items were to be treated.
3. HVPNL had been directed to show the realisation of the dues of the current year separately from the realisation of arrears of the past years. HVPNL has represented that it is not possible for them to provide details for past years as accounting and billing and collection systems used in the past are not amenable to such segregation. The Licensee has contended that significant measures are being undertaken to segregate current realisations from arrears from April 2001 by making suitable changes in accounting, billing and collection procedures.
4. The Commission had expected that the Licensee should furnish income from meter rentals for each category of consumers, in its next Filing. HVPNL has stated that it is in the process of outsourcing metering, billing and collection with extensive use of information systems. Once these are in place, the Licensee will be in a position to comply with the directive of the Commission in this regard.
5. The Commission had directed the Licensee to develop a modern system of data collection, storage, retrieval and analysis through computerisation at sub-divisional level. The Licensee has mentioned that a comprehensive project for metering, billing and collection and customer service has been initiated by the Licensee whereby computers shall be provided in all sub-divisions, circles, zones and headquarters and all of them with be networked with database being provided on the main server.
6. The Licensee had been directed to arrange for conduct of survey of all LT industrial consumers through an independent agency in order to plug the leakage of substantial revenue that appears to be taking place in this area. HVPNL has responded that they have directed survey of LT industries by outsourcing this activity. The Licensee has also stated that at the internal micro level, data is being collected for some selected sub-divisions and analyzed for variance.
7. HVPNL had been directed to prepare a feeder-wise report where distribution losses are above acceptable limits and monitor those feeders regularly and submit a quarterly report to the Commission. The Licensee has also been directed to speed up replacement of defective meters.
8. The Commission had directed the Licensee to comply with the suggestion given with regard to regrouping A&G expenses in some small homogeneous categories and then forecast each of these categories separately and submit the required data.
9. The Commission had directed the Licensee to show the deferred payment subsidy, unpaid subsidy and regulatory asset as separate heads in its accounts and also show the borrowings to fund these as separate items under its liabilities.
10. The Commission was very much concerned about the diversion of funds and had directed the Licensee to provide a detailed progress report on all the capital works being planned and carried out along with the funds invested in these with the ARR filings in future. An explanation for the funds borrowed for capital expenditure purposes but not utilized for the same should also be submitted.
11. The Commission had reiterated that the Sixth Schedule of Electricity (Supply) Act, 1948 require the contribution to the contingency reserve Fund to be invested in securities authorised under the Indian Trust Act, 1882 within a period of six months from the close of the year of account in which the appropriation is made. The Commission had directed the Licensee to comply with this requirement and further directed that any drawl from the contingency reserve can be made only with the approval of the Commission.
12. The Commission had directed the Licensee to fully comply with the guidelines for filing A.R.R in future and provide all the expenditure details as per the Forms prescribed by the Commission for ARR filing.
13. The Commission had directed the Licensee to submit the detailed consumer category-wise receivables with proper age-wise analysis, separately for sale of power, municipal tax, electricity duty and surcharge amount with the next ARR filing. The recoveries for current and old bills should also be shown separately.
14. The Licensee should speed up the replacement of defective meters and complete this work at the earliest.
15. Plan for strengthening Energy Audit should be made more specific to feeder or an area and ultimately to the division level. Initiative may also be taken to build a model division.
16. The investment planned for reduction of losses should be taken on priority and should be evaluated on completion of the same. A report on such schemes should be sent to the Commission on quarterly basis.
17. Load survey should be carried out for all categories of consumers and attention be focused on such consumers who pay on MMC basis or on an average basis for a long time; or where consumption indicated is much lower than possible with the stated connected load, without any valid reason.
18. The Commission had directed the Licensee to improve the quality and consistency of data required by the Commission for monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the utility.
19. The Commission had directed HVPNL to submit a proposal for two-part tariff with the next tariff filing supported by reliable and authentic data. The HVPNL should submit detailed data relating to consumers billed on MMC basis for all categories of consumers and slabs.
20. The Licensee had been directed to provide detailed sales related data in the next ARR filing.
21. The Commission had directed the Licensee to provide the number of consumers, connected load and sales data pertaining to the LT industrial consumers having connected load less than 20 kW separately in its next ARR filing.
22. The Commission had directed the Licensee to rationalize the document addressing all the terms and conditions including the conditions mentioned in the Application and Agreement (A&A) Form and amended through the various circulars issued by the utility from time to time. The Commission further directed that the Licensee should not issue any new circular or amend any terms & conditions relating to or affecting the tariffs for consumers without the prior approval of the Commission.
