Women Power CESU Success

Women Power CESU Success

‘Women power’ has taken a whole new meaning in remote Nayagarh district. A CESU initiative has brought together the unlikely ingredients of power distribution and women in a successful and mutually beneficial scheme. As many as 133 women’s self-help groups (SHGs) carry out the tasks of metering, billing and collection (MBC) in 159 panchayat areas of the mostly rural district under the project called SHG Energy Franchise Agreement (SEFA).

Launched five years ago, the project has worked wonders for CESU; billing coverage in these areas has gone up from 72% to 96%, collection coverage has increased from 59% to 85%, billing efficiency is up from 55% to 75% and collection efficiency has improved from 88% to 101%. Plus, the bane of the power sector, aggregate technical &commercial (AT&C)loss, has reduced from 59% to 24%. In turn, the improved parameters have helped CESU to provide better quality of power and service to its customers.

At the same time, the SEFA scheme has brought a bonanza for the involved women SHGs in terms of earnings and empowerment. From Rs 128.3 lakh in 2012-13, their income almost doubled to Rs 236 lakh by 2016-17.

This movement began in August 2008 when aseminar on ‘Engaging Women SHGs as Franchisees in Electricity Distribution Business’ was organized and involved the then chairman andmembers of OERCand representatives from Mission Shakti andthe state government.

The meeting decided to fulfill the mandate of the Electricity Act, 2003, the central government’s Rural Electrification Policy and OERC’s Tariff Orders to train and involve women groups in MBC activities. The vision was to ensure community participation in power distribution, create sustainable micro franchisees as well as empower women through capacity building and income generation.

Launched by CESU as a pilot project in Nayagarh in 2008, it was taken over by the Feedback Energy Distribution Company Ltd (FEDCO) franchisee in 2012. Since then,women SHGs in the district have been going from strength to strength.

“This initiative for community participation through women SHGs will achieve a turnaround in rural power distribution across Odisha,” says OERC chairperson UN Behera.

The electricity commission chief says he was amazed at the confidence of the rural women during a recent meeting he had with several SHGs. “The women spoke with complete confidence and determination about their ability to change the power scenario in the state by bringing down AT&C loss to 5% and increasing billing & collection to 100%. They also agreed wholeheartedly to participate in the expansion of the SEFA scheme across Odisha,” he adds.

In May 2017, Behera had convened a meeting with the secretaries of energy, Panchayati Raj, and women and child development ministries, Mission Shakti, Odisha Livelihood Mission and the heads of all four state discoms—CESU, NESCO, WESCO & SOUTHCO. It was decided that the SEFA scheme would be scaled up to selected areas of the four discoms. The energy department and the discoms were tasked with executing the scheme in collaboration with OLM.

Accordingly, a pilot scheme involving 16 electrical subdivisions of the discoms with poor track records in poor revenues and losses were selected. They are Kujang, Ersama, Tirtol, Bhubaneswar (Dhauli) and Balianta subdivisions of CESU, Keonjhar-II, Rairangpur-II and Muruda of NESCO, Padmapur, Nuapada and Biramaharaj purunder WESCO, and Umarkote, Laxmipur, Manmunda, Phulbani and Balimela of SOUTHCO.

Awareness camps have begun in these areas, training of the ‘master trainers’ (field staff of the subdivisions) is complete and the selection of the women SHGs is about to begin. The self-help groups are expected to be deployed in the field by January 2019