Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje conducted a meeting with the Electricity Department to focus on reducing the electricity theft in the state. She instructed the officials to use special mechanisms and form a time-bound action plan to stop this theft. She said that mass collaboration and support from representatives for the Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyaan (MJSA) is required to get this project started for the maximum number of electricity theft feeders.
Chief of Electricity Department met CM Raje on Friday at her residence for the meeting to review the measures through which the state can curb energy theft. She said that to ensure the participation of consumers in this program, various media portals should be used so that it could reach the masses. She also instructed the officials to form a time-bound action plan for the working of Deendayal Upadhyay Rural Jyoti, IDPS, and other plans.
Chief Minister gave the example of Bhimpura area of Ajmer and asked them to apply for its innovative energy saving program on other feeders as well. It is to be noted that Bhimpura feeder has reduced the energy loss from 46.96% to 17.41%. Stating this, Vasundhara Raje asked the officials to use the same stats and methods to generate the same result in other feeders as well, may it be through taking the rural consumers into confidence or making them understand its viability or repair of the switches, transformers, etc., appliances of electricity on time.
She suggested carrying out this operation in phases. The first phase may include total 5000 feeders from all over the State to use these innovative steps. According to her, an emphasis is to be laid on the project and highlight it between the masses so that they could easily connect to it on ground level like MJSA, and seek their cooperation with the ministers, MLAs, and public representatives. Along with this, there should be a provision of punishing thieves and rewarding the feeders who successfully reduce the percentage loss of electricity department.
A time period of 1 week has been granted by the CM to the department to form a complete action plan on the matter and seriously punish those who are engaged in such thefts with the help of technicians. Also, those engineers and MLAs supporting such thieves will face strict legal action. She guided the officers to make a third-party inspection for taking the unbiased and impartial view.
Smt. Vasundhara Raje said that we should urge common masses and consumers to join this campaign and also ask others to use various media portals to make people aware of the campaign. For this purpose, the electricity companies should ask their representatives to make a team and plan an action systematically through newspapers, TV channels, radio, social media and mobile phone operations and make public aware of government policies. In addition to it, the consumer’s complaints, suggestions, and feedback should be taken through the internet, mobile apps and SMS, etc. and use this information constructively.
She concluded in the meeting that the action plan for the central government’s Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Jyoti Yojana for the rural areas and IDPS Yojna for the urban sector should be formed by the first week of October. She instructed the Chief Secretary and President of Power Companies to regularly monitor the implementation and working of these projects. Along with these projects, the innovative feeders’ project should also be implemented within a time frame.
The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Energy Pushpendra Singh, Chief Secretary Shri O P Meena, Additional Chief Secretary Shri DB Gupta, Principal Secretary Energy Shri Sanjay Malhotra, Chairman, Mr. Pandey, the managing director of the power distribution companies in Jaipur, Ajmer and Jodhpur, Mr. R G Gupta along with other senior consultant officers.
