Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, OCTOBER 9
The state department of Power, which completes 51 years of foundation this year, has seen very little or no change over the years in terms of technology and professionalism despite growth in demand and expansion of networks/infrastructure and size of the organization.
This, besides the dire need to up revenue and distribution in the power sector, was the crux of discussion at the general conference of the Association of Power Engineers Nagaland (APEN) held today at De Oriental Grand, Kohima on the theme ‘Re-engineering Professional Response’.
With a total installed capacity of a mere 600 KW barely covering three towns in the early 1960s, electricity has come a long way and the demand today stands at 145 MW covering all the towns and over 1400 villages in the state. Despite such growth in the network, the department is said to have hardly managed to adopt new systems and technologies of significance except for the computerisation of billing system in Dimapur, Chumukedima and Kohima.
“Till today, the same old designs, materials and technologies, and the same approach and management systems are followed and practiced…. The same old bill books, receipt and ledgers are in use even in this digital age,” says senior engineer and APEN president, Keviletuo Yiese. Most of the state’s power assets are reported to have aged more than 35-40 years and the first EHV sub-station at Nagarjan and the first mini hydro electrical project Dzuza HEP are almost beyond salvage. It was also pointed out at the conference that as far as operation and maintenance is concerned, only breakdown maintenances are being seen to and no preventive/predictive maintenances are ever carried out, largely due to lack of capacity building in addition to resource deficiencies and constraints. As a result, the daily routine has been reduced to more of crisis management and fire fighting rather than proper planning and timely action.
Supplementing to this, Yiese, in the presidential address said that as a commercial department, performance indicators have become highly disturbing and worrisome with high AT&C loss of 68% mainly due to high percentage of under billing and non-billing, a huge revenue gap and poor quality power supply.
He also raised concern that against the projected demand of 400 MW and energy requirement of 2765.67 million units by 2019, the estimated shortfall is 50% and 71% respectively if capacity addition and systems constraints are not addressed and resolved. The senior engineer underscored the need to reset goals and priorities if the objectives of the Centre’s 24x7 Power For All Policy are to be achieved in Nagaland.
Another issue of immense concern, it was also discussed that there seems to be a lack of understanding on the part of policy makers and administrators on the complexity of the power sector and its dynamic nature. It was pointed out that sectoral allocation of State Plan over the years indicates the government’s apathy towards the power sector, while some states get as high as 32% of the State Outlay, the plan allocation for the department during 2015-16 was only 7.11 crores which is 1.54% of the state’s total allocation. Under Non Plan, against a requirement of 20-30 crores yearly for operation & maintenance, only 3-4 crores is provided which is grossly inadequate for an essential services department like power, it was noted. The engineers also put across that due to poor maintenance of power supply for want of funds, officers and staff are regularly harassed and even assaulted physically.
Long pending matters on organizational reforms and restructuring of the department were also discussed at the conference and it was highlighted that the power department had been declared as a commercial department along with transport department, with the performances measured with commercial parameters, but ironically, the former is reportedly expected to function without commercial structure and with a same set of financial, management, O&M rules which are applied to non-commercial departments.
Chief Secretary Nagaland, Pankaj Kumar, who graced the occasion as the chief guest, was considerate to the plight of the department highlighted by APEN. He said he was familiarized to the issues of the power sector after taking over the helm as the top bureaucracy seat in the state, however, he said that things are never perfect and as engineers, they have to “think out of the box” to deal with challenges with available resources.
Kumar also reminded that Nagaland is currently in a state of (financial) crisis and during such times, everything cannot be tackled. While admitting that funds given for annual maintenance are highly inadequate, the official urged upon the power engineers to give efforts and reorient themselves in such a way that they make small progress with what they have. He stated that if revenue and distribution issues are handled on priority, then other factors will gradually fall into place. He emphasized that improvement of service and provision of facilities will have to go together.
The chief secretary also assured that the department of power is very much under the radar of the government and the state’s power policy is being worked on so as to introduce it soon. In the meantime, he encouraged the department to build a working relationship with line departments like the New & Renewable Energy.
Chief Engineers, K Miachieo (Transmission & Generation) and G Chishi (Distribution & Revenue) also delivered brief speeches.
