Adani Group to collect power bills in Hyderabad’s Old City

Official sources confirmed that high level meetings were held in this regard by the government and that the Cabinet too was is in favour of handing over power supply and bill collections to the Adani Group.

Hyderabad: The State government is reportedly planning to hand over some Electricity Circles in Hyderabad city to private companies to contain Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses. As part of this, the Old City area, which falls under the Hyderabad South Circle, will be handed over to the Adani Group.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy revealed this to the media in Delhi two days ago, according to reports. Official sources confirmed that high level meetings were held in this regard by the government and that the Cabinet too was is in favour of handing over power supply and bill collections to the Adani Group.

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Sources said Adani Group representatives had already gathered information from the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TGSPDCL) with regard to power bill collections and the difficulties being faced by it. A corporate team of the Adani Group has been studying the power supply and other issues related to the Old City since the last few months, sources said.

According to Discom officials, in order to hand over the responsibilities of electricity distribution and bill collection to the private sector, the State government has to grant permission to the Discoms. Then the DISCOMs have to call for tenders and select private companies. There are about 7.20 lakh electricity consumers in Hyderabad South Circle.

Hyderabad South Circle has the highest loss of 41.4 percent, of which 90.7 percent losses are being recorded in the Barkas feeder. It is learnt that the SPDCL loses more than Rs.500 crore annually from this one circle. The annual losses of the two discoms – SPDCL and NPDCL – are more than Rs.5,500 crore annually. In fact, the loss due to technical problems in supply is on an average 10-12 percent. Problems like electricity theft and bill evasion are the major causes of losses, officials said.

As plans to hand over the Old City to Adani Group are being discussed, it is being debated in the official circles whether the same policy will be applied to other electricity circles that may incur losses in the future.

In the Old City, some people do not even allow the electricity personnel to enter the houses to record the reading of the electricity meter. Recently, footage of a house owner attacking a power staff with a knife for disconnecting an electricity connection for non-payment of bills went viral on social media. Due to the frequent occurrence of such attacks, electricity personnel are afraid to perform duties in the Old City. Besides this, meter tampering and theft is also a major problem in the Old city.

In order to overcome such difficulties across the country, the Centre has made amendments to the electricity rules to hand over the responsibilities of ‘distribution and bill collection’ to private companies by electricity circles. It is in this context that the State government is planning to allow the Adani Group into the Old City area, sources said.