The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the release of new power connections in the last one and half years. To make up for the backlog, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has provided more than 15 lakh new single and three-phase meters in the last five months to regional offices. Also, more than five lakh new HT(high tension) and LT (low tension) connections have been released. Last year, after the first wave of Covid, there was a decline in the availability of electricity meters due to various reasons, MSEDCL officials said. As a result, the pace of providing new connections was somewhat slow. In a review meeting, Energy Minister Nitin Raut had instructed the power utility to expedite the release of new connections by overcoming the shortage of meters. The chairman and managing director of MSEDCL Vijay Singhal immediately decided to start the tendering process to ensure that electricity meters are available to the field offices regularly throughout the year. Accordingly, the work order was issued to the suppliers from March for supplying 18 lakh single phase and 1.70 lakh three-phase meters. - Stay updated with the latest Pune news. Follow Express Pune on Twitter here and on Facebook here. You can also join our Express Pune Telegram channel here. After the metres were made available, the speed of releasing new connections has increased. Generally, MSEDCL releases 8-9 lakh new meters in a year. However, the utility has released 435 HT connections and 5.18 lakh LT connections during March-July 2021. In the LT and HT category, most connections are in the residential category (3.89 lakh), followed by commercial (59,969), industrial (10,963), agriculture (50,178), waterworks and street lights (742) and others (7243). Also, the faulty meters are being replaced immediately as soon as a complaint is registered.
