According to the “Consumer Service Rating of Discoms” (CSRD) report, newly released by the Union power ministry, only two discoms scored the highest “A+” grade.
It is also found that over half of electricity consumers were being served by distribution companies (discoms) with relatively inadequate grading.
The report evaluated the performance of 60 discoms, including state government-owned and even private ones, and graded them on the basis of various parameters as A+, A, B+, B, C+, C and D. Discoms were evaluated on the basis of their performance during the year 2020-21 (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021).
It may be mentioned that 70 discoms were approached for the report conducted by REC Ltd. However, there was lack of participation from four discoms whereas data insufficiency was encountered with respect to six discoms.
The total number of consumers that were being served by the 60 discoms covered in the report stood at around 30.56 crore.
The discoms were evaluated on the basis of four parameters — operational reliability (OR); connections and other services (CoS); metering, billing and collections (MBC); and, fault rectification and grievance redressal (FRGR). Each parameter was assigned a weight and the final aggregate grade was derived as a weighted score of individual grades on the four parameters.
The OR parameter had the highest weight of 45 per cent followed by MBC with 35 per cent. The remaining two parameters – CoS and FRGR – had a weight of 10 per cent, each.
As can be seen from the chart below, only two discoms good the highest aggregate grade of A+, while the modal class was C+ in which the maximum number of 17 discoms fell. The next highest class was B that had 15 discoms.
Those with A+ grade had a cumulative score of more than 90, on a scale of 100. At the other extreme, grade D implied a cumulative score of less than 40.
Considering B+ to the benchmark, a cumulative grade of B or lower implies poor overall services. In this respect, it can be seen that 44 discoms fall in this category. Going by the consumer volume handled, it is found that 64 per cent of consumers are getting inadequate overall services.
Incidentally, two discoms earning an overall grade of A+ were both private discoms – BSES Yamuna Power Ltd and BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd – serving 44.62 lakh consumers (all urban) in Delhi. These accounted for just 1.46 per cent of the total consumers served by all the discoms under study.
No discom scored an A+ grade across all the four parameters – OR, CoS, MBC and FRGR. Incidentally, in terms of the most important parameter – Operational Reliability (OR) – 21 discoms scored A+ grade. A total of 7.7 crore customers were being served by these 21 discoms.
