The Hindu : Karnataka News : Mescom rated No. 3 in the country in terms of performance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 28, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka

Mescom rated No. 3 in the country in terms of performance

Special Correspondent

It plans to reduce energy losses to international level

It managed to cut distribution losses to 13.63 per cent
It added about 7,500 transformers in three years

BANGALORE: The Mangalore Electricity Supply Company (Mescom) has been ranked No. 3 in the country in terms of meritorious performance in the power supply and related issues. The Union Power Ministry awarded a bronze shield to Mescom on the basis of evaluation of performance by the Central Electricity Authority. The award, instituted under the Comprehensive Awards Scheme of the Union Power Ministry, was presented at a function organised in Delhi last week.

Mescom is the only power supply company from the entire southern region to be judged as one of the best three Escoms of the country. Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited Managing Director Bharatlal Meena, who is also chairman of all the five Escoms in the State, said some of the best practices and innovative schemes adopted by the Mescom were responsible for the company standing out from the rest.

Mescom Managing Director Sumanth S. says Mescom had done well in terms of sharp reduction in energy losses, number of interruptions in power supply as well as transformers’ failure besides increasing revenue collection and taking up universal metering.

He said Mescom had managed to reduce distribution losses to 13.63 per cent which is the lowest for all the five Escoms in the state. The distribution losses in major cities and towns in the Mescom region was even lesser as it varied from 4.6 per cent to 13.63 per cent. Such a reduction in energy losses was possible due to the system improvement works as well as stringent energy auditing.

Now, the Mescom has set a challenging target of reducing energy losses in three of its divisions of Mangalore, Udupi and Shimoga to that of international level — about 7 per cent.

To improve the quality of power supply, Mescom has added about 7,500 transformers to the system in the last three years. The improvement in system maintenance and also upgrading of network has reduced the transformers’ failure rate from 15.79 per cent in 2004-05 to 9.37 per cent now.

Mescom was the first in the State to introduce auto re-closures in select rural areas to identify the instantaneous identification of faulty lines.

It also introduced Rural Load Management System in 6,700 rural distribution transformer centres to segregate the irrigation pumpset load from that of the domestic power load. This would ensure that power supply for domestic purposes will not be interrupted when there is loadshedding for 3-phase power supply.

Similarly, the implementation of the universal metering was on on a brisk pace in the Mescom region with 96.91 per cent of installations getting metered.

Mr. Sumanth said Mescom would now carry forward the ongoing reforms with more vigour and aim to become number one in the country in terms of performance.

Expressing happiness over the performance of Mescom, Mr. Meena said steps would be taken to extend the Mescom’s best practices, especially the auto re-closures, to other Escoms in the State.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka