Power theft not limited to urban areas in Nagaland

Our Reporter
Dimapur, March 10 (EMN): The government of Nagaland has been highlighting the issue of rampant power theft in the state and trying to curb the menace for years but has failed due to non co-operation and resistance from the consumers.

Officials from electrical division, who are directly dealing with the consumers, said that power theft in the form of direct hooking from line, tampering of energy meters and by-passing of meters is not limited to urban areas but exists in rural areas as well.

They lamented the illegal stealing of electrical power affecting the revenue growth, which in turn affects the power supply.

Executive Engineer, Dimapur Electrical division, Y Akito Sema told Eastern Mirror that the domestic power consumption in the state accounts for approximately 80% of the total usage.

Besides direct energy use used for cooling, heating, refrigerating, cooking, laundry, lighting and operation of household appliances and gadgets, he said it also indirectly used in production of household items.

The engineer said that the present revenue collection is low and there is high customer debt burden in the state due to illegal and rampant use of power by means of theft.

According to the Vision Document 2021 for sustainable development of Nagaland, presented by the Association of Power Engineers Nagaland (APEN), “the state’s energy demand is predominantly met from the central sector allocations, which is 90%, with own generation contributing approximately 10% only”.

Resistance to change

Besides the nuisance of power theft, many are reluctant to replace the mechanical energy meter box with the digital one.

Junior Engineer (JE), Electrical sub-division No.1 Dimapur, Kiyeto Shohe said that the mechanical energy meter box, which was used earlier, is a very old metering system which might not take the actual consumption rate as it can be tampered.

He lamented the Power department incurring heavy revenue loss due to tampering by the consumers.

‘Even if a consumer uses a lot of energy, the bill hardly comes up to INR 1000 a month because of the manipulation. The digital metering, however, gives accurate reading unlike the mechanical metering,’ he said.   

Another JE, Akumtoshi Jamir pointed out that 50% of power is consumed in Dimapur district alone with peak load recorded between 5 pm to 9 pm.

However, people are still not unwilling to replace the mechanical meters with the digital one as they had been ‘conveniently’ paying the minimum bill, not according to their actual energy consumption, for years, it was informed.

‘We do not force people but work towards creating awareness to the consumers. At times, when we go for replacement of the meter box, we face resistance, so we resort to having a seat with the council, educate them and leave the choice and understanding to them,’ Jamir shared.

He maintained that 80% of hooking has been stopped through continuous raids conducted by the department.

‘Meanwhile, people are coming to an understanding on the digital metering system and the billing system. Because of the mechanical energy meter box used with manipulation, consumers have been paying unrealistic bills, but with the digital metering, which provides accurate bills, consumers were taken aback and came with lots of complaints to the office. But now, there is an understanding among the consumers and the revenue has also improved as of now,’ he added.

Govt. quarters occupants among defaulters

The engineers revealed that government offices have no issues with bill payment but government quarters are a “mess” as most of the occupants vacate the quarters without clearing the bills and the next occupants cannot pay for the previous occupants.

“The PWD residential complex and Sematilla PWD residential complex in Dimapur are the most difficult to follow up and have the maximum complaints of not clearing the electricity bill,” they pointed out.  

JE Kakuto Chishi, meanwhile, said that there are days when the staff goes house to house for replacement of the meter box but they end up without installing even one because of resistance from the consumers.

He noted that it will take some time for people to accept it as they have been paying ‘unrealistic bills’ for a very long time. But with the few replacements that the department has done, there is improvement, he said.

Way forward

He also opined that to curb power theft and improve the overall revenue in the state, such exercises (installation of digital meters) should be done in the entire state. 

‘The government should come up with measures to curb power theft in rural areas as well because tampering and hooking is practiced not only in urban areas but also in the rural areas. Such practice affects the revenue, transmission and transfer as it is done without any technical support,’ he added. 

APEN, in its Vision Document 2021, stated that the immediate pressing challenges are the high aggregate technical and commercial losses in revenue sector, lack of capacity in distribution sector to support even small scale industries and lack of capacity in transmission sector for heavy industries, particularly in the foothill areas if any major industries are to be set up. As per the document, it is estimated that INR 2500 crore to INR 3000 crore would be needed in these sectors for distribution and transmission capacity and augmentation requirements alone.