Thiruvananthapuram: KSEB Limited seems keen to extract more from the consumer but without putting in place even the basic infrastructure required for a modern customer service network. A basic requirement of such a network, the automatic rectification of power outages, continues to elude the state. Power consumers in major towns and cities in the state should have enjoyed the benefits of automatic rectification of power outages at least by the end of 2014.
Had the system been in place, any power outage as a result of technical snags or exogenous causes like a storm or rain will be relayed to the automatic distribution control mechanism that will immediately set in motion the rectification process. Under the ambitious Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP) to make the utility commercially viable, a Centralised Customer Care Service (CCC) was to be set up as part of Part A of RAPDRP to improve the customer service by procession and resolving customer requests, queries and complaints in minimum possible time.
All the 43 projects submitted by KSEBL under Part A for 43 towns in the state were sanctioned in November 2009. The deadline was further extended by five years to 2014. Even then, it was not completed. However, exposing the profligate ways of the public utility, Korea Electric Power Data Network Company Limited (KDN), the contractor for the project, was extended favours. KDN was to link all 228 electrical sections falling within the 43 towns with the CCC. The CCC was inaugurated in Thiruvananthapuram in November, 2014. “But most of the sections could not be linked with the CCC as KDB failed to provide end-user training to officials of KSEBL,” a top KSEB Limited source said.
“Thus, the facility of complaint redressal system was denied to consumers,” the source added. It was also noticed that even in CCC-linked sections, integration of the system with billing module and consumer indexing was pending undermining the gains of the linkage. Under the contract, release of payments was performance-based, where payments would be made for measured deliverables and outputs. There is no provision for payment of advance on delivery of material. Even then, in August 2014 KSEBL Board of Directors decided to pay interest-free advance of Rs 14.5 crore to KDN.
