TANGEDCO to digitalize all operations, introduces app for billing

TANGEDCO is on a drive to computerize all its operations, from boardroom to thermal plans and windmills.

The drive has been undertaken to minimize the power leakage at various levels and bring down the loss. The latest drive is to introduce the domestic consumers meters’ recording.

Instead of waiting for the smart meters, the Discom has introduced a mobile app, which will record meter readings of domestic consumers.

“The assessor will record the reading of a meter with a smartphone in which the app has been downloaded. Once recorded, the reading and details about how much the consumer must pay will be sent to the consumer’s phone number,” said a senior TANGEDCO official.

The official said that as of now, the app has been tested in 27 places and it is working properly.

“Following this, we have asked the Chennai and Vellore region to use the app and record the amount of power consumed. Getting details through the app prevents any mistake made by the assessor while recording the meter reading,” said the official.

Also read: Overstaffed TANGEDCO, TANTRANSCO face issues in paying salaries

Already the TNEB accounts are computerized and slowly, all consumers are paying their power bills online.

“More and more domestic consumers are changing to online payment. They either use net-banking or various payment gateways to pay the bills. Queues in various sub-stations or collection offices have come down in recent times. Mostly in Chennai, the domestic consumers pay online,” said the official.

More than 70 per cent of the consumers have started paying through online and the remaining will also pay in online mode in a few months.

“All high-tension consumers have started paying their bills only through online and in the domestic section, nearly 70 per cent have come on board,” said the official.

Similarly, the Discom has also computerized its accounts as well as wind power generation. Tamil Nadu is also the first state to use GPS in windmills.

The new billing scheme has made it easy for TANGEDCO officials to know the wind power generation on a real time basis.

“Though we are dependent on forecasts for the power schedule, on a real time basis, GPS provides us to know wind generation live,” said another senior TANGEDCO official.

Also read: Centre to pay ₹ 3,000 crore more to Tamil Nadu in tax income

Transmission of power to the sub-station or from the sub-station to various places have been computerised, and this will help the TANGEDCO and TANTRANSCO to bring down the leakage of power.

“In the feeder line as well as in the transformer, the power input and output have been computerised and in the high-tension section, the voltage issues have been more or less solved through computerisation,” said the official.