Haryana may adopt "Punjab Model" to reduce losses
January 10, 2013
By Vinod Gupta
CHANDIGARH: Haryana may adopt “Punjab Model” in power utilities to reduce line losses and to supply quality power to consumers, said Devender Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Haryana Discoms while interacting with PSEB engineers and showed interest in the presentation made by them on Punjab Model.
He said that adoption of Punjab Model would be finalized after discussion with senior officers of the Nigams and the Government. The DISCOMs have already started strengthening of the distribution system in the State. The model suggested by the PSEB engineers to reduce line losses would benefit the consumers as they will get quality power with better voltage.

Padamjit Singh Chairman All India Power Engineers Federation said that in Haryana AT&C losses were in range of 20 to 30% in urban domestic feeders and 50 to 70 % in rural areas, which mainly consist of commercial losses. These can be successfully brought down to 10 to15 % in city areas and 20 to 25 % in rural areas on Punjab pattern.

Bhupinder Singh Secretary General of Northern India Power Engineers Federation made a presentation before Haryana Power Utilities management. He highlighted the gains from the low cost strategies to reduce line losses in Punjab.
He said that investment made on improving the system can be recovered with in a period of one year of implementation. He further said quality & reliability of supply to consumers in rural areas where this model has been implements has vastly improved. In Punjab AT&C losses were 22% in year 2009-10 and these have been brought down to 19% by the end of March 2012.These will be reduced to 18 % by the end of current financial year. The system reliability index has been improved to 99.75%. The damage rate of distribution transformers has also been reduced significantly. In Punjab power engineer took the initiative in 2007-08 to reduce losses in selected 11KV feeders by introduction of low cost strategies with payback period of 1 to 2 years through departmental efforts. A pilot project was launched on four feeders of west division Patiala .Complete & independent feeders were selected for accurate & authentic energy audit.
The pilot project included two rural feeders, one urban Kundi area feeder and one posh area feeder of Patiala.LT system was re-laid and meters were shifted to pillar boxes. The pilot project has incurred an expenditure of 34 crore and 233 lakh units of energy has been saved on completion of pilot project.. On completion of pilot project it was adopted by the board management and the Patiala model was extended to the entire state with funding by Rural Electricity Corporation. About 20 lac consumer meters have been shifted in pillar boxes from 2009 till date on turnkey basis. Further 14 lac consumers meters shall be shifted out in next six months after receipt of funds from REC.