Our Correspondent
Kohima, March 14 (EMN): The Association of Power Engineers Nagaland (Apen) conducted its general conference, on March 14 at Hotel Japfü in Kohima. Commissioner-secretary for Power, KD Vizo, was the speaker of the event.
Vizo acknowledged that there was a ‘lot of improvement in the sector of transmission, distribution, revenue, and generation. A lot of groundwork has been done,’ he said.
Keeping in mind the indispensability of electricity in life, Vizo asked the officials to deliver efficient services to the people particularly to those in the rural areas. He encouraged them to incorporate the latest state of art technology to improve transmission sector, generation sector, distribution sector, and revenue collection.
There are few areas that need focus in the electricity department, according to the official. These include strengthening the billing and collection mechanism to increase revenue collection and improve the state economy.
‘Power connection is still a costly service in the state and engineers need to hard to find out ways and means of giving power connections at cheap price so that even common man should be able to afford electricity connections,’ he suggested.
Some of the suggestions that was made during the event: Strengthen the checking mechanism against power theft and ensure that citizens pay for what they use; educate the citizens about conservation of energy; emphasise on training and capacity building to handle new technology; improve basic building infrastructure and welfare measures in the rural areas; focus more on improving power systems in the rural areas, which comes along with the need for officers to serve faithfully in the areas etc.
Apen’s president, Shikato Sema, said that the association aims at delivering better service to the public. He asked them to keep a close check on whether projects are being implemented properly. Supervise the project properly, fully implement or executed properly be it the contractors or the engineers. ‘It is our bounden duty to ensure implementation,’ he said.
‘Most of the time we do only breakdown maintenance, but as engineers we need to look further by adopting preventive measures,’ he reminded. With the help of diagnostic tools or with years of experiences one can take corrective measures at the right time instead of letting it ‘blast altogether,’ the president said. He found out that most of the “engineers” are “very lacking” even in metre reading.
Engineer-in-chief (power) Ghukhuyi Chishi expressed dismay at the status of power revenue generation. About INR 200 cr. to INR 300 cr. is spent for purchasing power yet the department can only generate INR 100 cr. to INR 150 cr., he pointed out. He requested the officers to research and analyse the cause of the poor revenue generation.
The officer also suggested ways to tackle the issue including curbing activities of the engineers, field managers, monitoring revenue, staffs activities etc. He felt that a systematic procedure for bill correction should be followed. He urged the officers to appoint ‘deserving candidates’ too.
With the resources available at hand, the department should be able to generate power according to the needs of the people as well as contribute to others. Every effort should be made to correct the measures and provide uninterrupted and cheap power to the people without compromising its quality, Toy said.
Further, Chief Engineer Khose Sale spoke about some of the major challenges faced by the Power sector. A corporate reform is one of the main concerns at the sector, he said. ‘There has not been much structural change or organisational reform. Although it had begun, there is still a long way ahead,’ Sale said. ‘The sector is in need of officers who can take right decision,’ he said urging the electricity officers to have the right attitude ‘as that can deliver the best of service to the people.’
The association has announced a new team of office bearers for 2019- 2021. The new members are led by new president Penrithung Yanthan, and General Secretary Litrichem Sangtam.
