VCK leader Thol. Thirumavalavan has urged the Tamil Nadu government to abandon its decision to hand over electricity billing work to private parties.
In a post he released on this, he said, "With around 3.52 crore electricity consumers in Tamil Nadu, there are still many places where disruptions in power supply are causing hardship to the public. This is creating a situation that tarnishes the government's image. Complaints such as rising power demand, inability to provide uninterrupted electricity to consumers, delays in meter reading, errors in bill calculation, and increases in electricity charges have also been on the rise recently.
The staff-related issues within the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation are the main reason for such a crisis. In Chennai and various other places, feeder trips occur, and because there are no operators at the substations, a blackout situation arises due to power outages. Complaints from electricity consumers about billing errors, meter readings, and increased electricity charges are being raised in large numbers. The shortage of assessors to carry out electricity billing is the reason for this.
According to the Electricity Department white paper released after the T.V.K. government took office, it was stated that 53,575 posts were vacant and that 20,449 of those vacant posts would be filled. The white paper noted that the largest number would be Multi-Purpose Field Assistants, who can also handle accounting work, with 12,500 appointments, followed by 945 Electrical Technical Assistants.
Instead of recruiting personnel for the role of meter readers, it has been decided that the responsibility of carrying out meter-reading work will be entrusted to private companies on a contract basis; moreover, through a limited tender system in which only a restricted number of participants can take part, and that executive engineers at the electricity division level will issue the contract call and hand it over for a period of 6 months from October. This move by the government will amount to an administrative attempt to fully privatize subsidiary entities such as the electricity department. Therefore, the decision to entrust meter-reading work to the private sector should be withdrawn.
The reason for disruptions in power supply is that there are not enough 'operators' to fix them when a substation 'feeder trip' occurs. The responsibility for rectifying this lies with the technical assistant at the substation operator level and the second-level junior engineers. When they are not on duty, repair work is carried out by field staff who do not have sufficient skill or training for such incidents, causing the work to be done incompletely and with delays.
At present, around 1,800 operator positions are vacant, and 250 second-grade junior engineers are waiting for promotion. New posts have been approved for 50% of the number of newly to be established substations. Taking all of this into account, the number of vacant positions will rise to around 2,500. The white paper states that 945 vacancies will be filled within this year.
There are about 600 remaining candidates on the selection list, waiting for the internal interview for the post of Technical Assistant, who have received sufficient training and full competence to undertake this work, have studied diploma through higher secondary education, and have been working for many years in other lower-level positions in the Electricity Board. By first filling these posts with them among the 945 vacancies the government is set to fill, the related pending work will begin immediately. The government should recognize and appoint them, trusting that they will handle the current practical difficulties very easily and with managerial skill, thanks to the work experience they have gained. We urge the Tamil Nadu government to first appoint everyone who has passed the internal recruitment for the 945 Operator posts that the Tamil Nadu government has decided to fill in the electricity department," he has noted.