NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, OCT 30
Gujarat is the only state, among the 10 that were surveyed, supplying close to 24 hours of electricity to three categories of customers household, commercial, and institutional, says a survey.
This is one of the findings of the ‘Electricity access and benchmarking of distribution utilities’, a joint study by Smart Power India, NITI Aayog, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The study was conducted across 10 States, 25 utilities, over 25,000 respondents from different consumer categories, such as households, agriculture, commercial enterprises, and institutions from both urban and rural areas.
The study has brought out findings on grid connectivity, electricity access, customer satisfaction, and the state of the utilities’ capacity to deliver.
Commenting on the Access Study launch, Jaideep Mukherji, CEO, Smart Power India said, “India in recent years has emerged as one of the leaders in providing access to electricity to its citizens, almost doubling the access rate in the past 20 years from 59.4% to extending grid connections to 100% households in the country. This has been made possible through a multitude of efforts, including enhancing power generation to reduce supply deficits, strengthening the backbone of the electricity supply infrastructure, and ensuring last-mile connectivity for different customer segments. However, despite achieving 100 percent household electrification, access to reliable and affordable electricity supply continues to remain a major challenge even today. It is now time to focus on the sustainability of electricity access and craft an action plan to resolve the barriers.”
Focussing on Gujarat, the report collected around 1600 plus samples from the state. Gujarat is the only state supplying close to 24 hours of electricity to three categories of customers: household, commercial, and institutional. The state’s overall average number of hours of electricity supply drops to 10 hours when including the electricity supply data to agricultural customers for all four Gujarat distribution utilities. Gujarat West is the only distribution utility for which 100% of consumers in each of the four categories (household, agricultural, commercial, and institutional) reported zero voltage fluctuations. Gujarat West, Gujarat North, and AP East are the best performers in the household category, with 100%, 86%, and 84% of household customers, respectively, reporting zero voltage fluctuations. Gujarat South, Gujarat Central, and MP Central are the only three distribution utilities for whom institutional customers reported zero occurrences of electricity-related accidents. In the agricultural category, Gujarat West and Gujarat South top the list, for resolving 100% (Gujarat West) and 80% (Gujarat South) agricultural customers’ complaints for the past 1 year within 3 hours.
The study brings out important findings on grid connectivity, electricity access, customer satisfaction, and state of utility’s capacity to deliver.
Deepali Khanna, Managing Director, Asia Regional Office, The Rockefeller Foundation “India’s success in enabling electricity connections to millions of unelectrified populations underlines its strong commitment to achieving energy security for all. As India moves the spotlight on ensuring reliable and affordable electricity supply, it is a good time to map, assess, and benchmark the capacity of its electricity distribution utilities and help them enhance their overall performance to serve the growing energy needs of a billion people. The next phase of growth in the power sector should be led by supportive domestic regulatory and policy reforms for ensuring increased self-reliance and organizational efficiency.”
As the power sector seeks to achieve greater self-reliance and sound financial health, delivery effectiveness and customer satisfaction will play a crucial role in strengthening the overall performance of the sector. Besides, focus on areas such as quicker electricity connections, customer awareness and use of electricity subsidies, affordable tariffs structure for customers, increased customer engagement, and enhanced operational efficiencies both at organizational and supply level will help the sector achieve its full potential and create a transformational impact on millions of customers.
