Discom claims annual loss of 150 crore due to power theft

 New Delhi: Power discom TPDDL, supplying electricity to nearly 70 lakh consumers in north and northwest Delhi, on Saturday claimed it has suffered a huge annual loss of Rs 150 crore due to power theft in some pockets of its distribution area.

Its aggregate technical and commercial losses range between 50 per cent and 60 per cent, against the overall figure of 8.4 percent, in 24 villages in Narela and Bawana areas. 

"Power theft leading to annual revenue loss of over Rs 150 crores from Narela and Bawana was reported in 2017-18," a spokesperson of Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) said. 

The AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses have been brought down from 53 per cent to 8.4 percent since TPDDL took over from erstwhile Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) in 2002, he said. 

"We are consistently working towards reduction of AT&C losses in theft prone areas for the benefit of law-abiding consumers. 

We at Tata Power-DDL believe that our consumers must receive quality service and at the same time unscrupulous consumers need to be exposed to bring down losses, which also helps in keeping tariffs low for the honest consumers," TPDDL CEO Sanjay Banga said.
 
He said majority of TPDDL's consumers were proactive in taking registered electricity connections and paying bills regularly. 

"Nuisance by local strongmen, attacks and hindrances to enforcement raids are some of the major reasons for rampant electricity thefts in these areas," he added. Incidents of attacks on the discom's raiding teams are not uncommon.

During one such raid at Bajitpur village (which reported losses of over 49 per cent), a TPDDL raiding party backed by local police faced resistance from locals on August 25. 

The discom claimed to have "successfully" reduced the losses in the most difficult areas such as JJ (jhuggi jhopri) clusters. 

"These JJ cluster residents are economically much weaker than the land-owning villagers of outer Delhi but have shown exemplary willingness to abide by the law and turned into honest electricity consumers," the spokesperson said.  

The AT&C losses in JJ clusters and resettlement colonies went down from 68 per cent in 2008-09 to 12.44 per cent in 2017-18 while the number of consumers went up from 23,000 to 2.05 lakh in the given period, he said. 
The revenue collection from JJ clusters and resettlement colonies also rose from Rs 20 crores to Rs 170 crores during this period, he said.