Electricity Consumer Cells - An Analysis of Consumer Advisories (Phase 1)

CAG initiated Electricity Consumer Cells (ECCs) in December 2016 to create awareness, to advice, and educate consumers on the electricity sector of Tamil Nadu. The ECCs are situated in Cuddalore, Tiruvallur, and Tirunelveli. They are manned by electricity experts who advise consumers on electricity issues, create awareness through outreach meetings, and empower civil society organizations (CSOs) and electricity consumers through capacity building programmes. 

This article focuses on how ECCs receive consumer complaints and provide advisories through well-defined steps. Step 1: the consumer approaches the ECC with an electricity issue either in his/her house or neighbourhood. Step 2: the ECC expert documents the complaint. Step 3: depending on the nature of the complaint, the expert either gives advice immediately or liaises with the local electricity officials to resolve the complaint. Step 4: if the complaint is not resolved within a particular time frame, the expert advises the consumers and closes the complaint. Within this framework, the advisories are categorized into resolved, pending, and closed. Resolved advisories refer to the complaints which are solved by the ECCs in a stipulated time. Closed advisories refer to the complaints which are addressed to TNEB by the ECCs for a permanent solution; for example, bulbs for the street lights, voltage fluctuations, etc. 

Advisories and Status (December 2016-March 2018)

All ECCs have received on an average 11 complaints per month. Seventy-five percent of the complaints have been resolved within a time frame of one week to one month while 12% of the complaints are closed and 13% of the complaints are still pending.

Further, complaints registered are classified into billing related, meter related, service related, power quality, infrastructure, and miscellaneous. Billing-related complaints include billing issues, name transfers, change of tariff, variations in recording consumption by assessors; meter-related complaints include meter faults, meter reading issues, defective meters, and tampering of meters; service-related complaints refer to new service connections, agriculture connections, temporary supply and shifting of supply; power quality complaints include power supply failure, interruption of supply, voltage, and frequency; and infrastructure complaints include low tension and high tension wires, poles, transformers, street lights.

Under consumer category, 80% of the complainants are domestic/residential, followed by commercial (shops, small hotels/restaurants) (13.5%), with public bodies (e.g. place of worship) accounting for 3.94%, and agriculture (farmers) contributing to 1.5%. Another aspect is that 80% of the complainants are male and 20% are female consumers. 

In this phase, ECCs gave 488 advisories to consumers. Each ECC receives complaints either via letters, in person or over the phone. Break up indicates 80.7% of the complaints were received through the phone while 9% of people write letters and 10.3% visit the ECCs. 

In the future, ECCs will focus on bringing more categories of consumers such as Small and Medium Enterprises and small commercial establishments, expanding the area of operation, and empowering women on electricity issues.