IT to solve state’s power theft problems

The project,scheduled to be completed by June 2012,will cover 167 towns with population of 30,000 and above according to the last census.

The rest of the towns in the state will be taken up in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan,commencing from April 2012.

“Right now,we go by the rule of thumb because there is no demonstrable data on aggregate technical and commercial losses. With the completion of the project we will have exact data of energy inflow and outflow and revenue collected’,” said Nand Lal,commercial director of UPPCL.

He said the project will also solve the problem of frequent breakdown in power supply because of overloading of the transformers during cold wave and heat wave conditions. “We will be in a position to monitor from the central data centre the drawal by each category of consumer’,” said Nand Lal. “If any consumers draw more power than the sanctioned load,we can immediately ask for increase in the load and corresponding increase in the capacity of the transformer.”

The towns under the project are spread all over the state. Agra and Kanpur are not covered because power distribution in Agra has been handed to a private franchise. The process is under way in Kanpur.

APDRP is being implemented in two parts. In part A,a central data centre is being established in Lucknow. The Union power ministry had proposed a national data centre,but the state opposed it since electricity is a state subject under the Constitution. Part B includes renovation,modernisation and strengthening of all 33/11 kv substations and low tension feeder lines supplying power at the consumer’s end.

The Power Finance Corporation of India (PFC) had sanctioned a loan of Rs 668 cr for part A in June 2009. Of this,the first tranche of Rs 190 cr has been disbursed to UPPCL. For part B,the PFC has sanctioned a loan of Rs 3,200 cr,but the disbursal will commence only after completion of work under part A.

Under part A,HCL will develop IT infrastructure for online billing and link with leased data lines 2,093 locations in 167 towns with the data centre by August. Base line data on line losses will be computed for the project area. The project will also include consumer indexing,GIS mapping,metering of distribution transformers and feeder lines.

A modem,linked with the central data centre,will be installed at each transformer in 167 towns for automatic data logging on inflow and outflow of energy. This will enable UPPCL to monitor from Lucknow the outflow of energy from each transformer in the 167 towns and keep a tab on overloading of the transformers and power theft.