HVPN follows PSUs, offers PLI to staff

CHANDIGARH, February 24: Taking a leaf out of the book of the ailing Indian Airlines, Air-India and other public sector undertakings, the...

CHANDIGARH, February 24: Taking a leaf out of the book of the ailing Indian Airlines, Air-India and other public sector undertakings, the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (HVPN) has decided to offer productivity-linked incentive to its staff. The first state-owned power company in the country to adopt this course to improve recovery of dues, HVPN has gone a step ahead to mix the carrot with stick for non-performance.

The HVPN plans to make "routine job" attractive for its engineers and field staff by offering PLI for higher revenue collection and reduction in damage rate of distribution transformers. In short, better the revenue collection, bulkier the purse. The instructions were issued by HVPN Chief Engineer (Commercial) last month after the transmission company detected that revenue realisation was "highly dissatisfactory" as the field staff was not paying adequate attention. Under the incentive scheme, the field staff of the sub-division making revenue recovery of more than 95 per cent of the assessment will be given an incentive of five per cent of the amount recovered in excess of 95 per cent.

For instance, if the field staff of a sub-division manages to ensure additional recovery level of Rs 1 crore, the incentive will be a cool Rs 500,000 – which have to be divided among the members. The incentive will be payable only if the recovery of revenue is maintained for the next three months. "We hope to see a significant upswing in realisation of bills. Hitherto, the revenue realisation had been dismal," according to a senior HVPN official.

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In its bid to achieve reduction in damage rate of distribution transformers, the company has offered to give cash incentives. Under the scheme, it will carry out annual analysis of the damage rate in each operation sub division, categorising them into two groups – Group-A with damage rate of more than 20 per cent and Group-B with less than 20 per cent. If damage rate is reduced by 5 per cent for Group-A sub divisions, and 2.5 per cent for Group-B sub divisions, the SDOs will be given a cash award of Rs 5000. In addition, cash awards would be given to other field staff members for feeders at the centre and division level.

However, the new scheme is just about incentives, the HVPN is wielding the stick as well. If the recovery is less than 85 per cent, line (transmission) losses exceed 30 per cent and the monthly transformer damage rate is in excess of two per cent for two successive months, the sub-division staff will be asked to explain. In case, the workforce fails to perform above the minimum satisfaction level for more than six months in a financial year, the company will downgrade all the officers/staff working in the sub-division, according to HVPN officials.

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