A prepaid Smart meter box of the Department of Power Nagaland. As per recent policy tweaks, pre and post paid smart metering could become a norm in the future. (Morung File Photo)
• Communitisation repealed in urban areas
• Single Point Metering no more
• UEMBs revoked, VEMBs retained
• Smart metering all rural consumers
Imkong Walling
Dimapur | September 3
It was August 29, the second and final day of the Monsoon session of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly, 2024. Affecting reforms in a struggling energy sector was the focal point with several legislators, led by the Chief Minister and the state Power Minister, taking part in the discussion.
The discussion largely revolved around reviewing the state government’s Communitisation policy vis-à-vis electricity, put into effect in the early 2000s, backdropped by the recurring losses incurred by the Department of Power, Nagaland (DoPN). As revealed by the CM, the DoPN was losing revenue to the tune of Rs 300 cr, annually.
What missed the public eye, however, were the major changes affected to the electricity management rules in the ‘communitised’ areas. On August 27, per a Cabinet directive, Secretary, DoPN, notified the repealing of the Nagaland Communitisation of Electricity (Management in Urban Areas by Urban Electricity Management Board) Rules, 2004.
Another order, issued the same day, notified the Nagaland Communitisation of Electricity Management in Villages by Village Councils (First Amendment) Rules, 2024, amending the pre-existing rules of 2002.
A third notified the Additional Conditions of Supply of Electricity to Villages (First Amendment) Rules, 2024, amending the 2002 rules.
The changes introduced took effect on August 27, 2024.
What does it mean?
Now, what does the amendments and repealing mean for the consumers? As far as the notification for the Urban Electricity Management Boards (UEMB) is concerned, it means that electricity as a ‘communitised’ public utility has ceased to exist in the urban areas, with effect from August 27. And alongwith it, the UEMBs would no longer operate.
The communitisation policy had also covered villages located adjacent to cities/towns, and also, select localities existing well within the coverage of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). It resulted in the formation of UEMBs on the line of the VEMBs.
In the villages, or strictly rural villages, the erstwhile Single Point Metering (SPM) system will be replaced by post paid “smart metering,” but the VEMBs will be retained.
As notified in the Nagaland Communitisation of Electricity Management in Villages by Village Councils (First Amendment) Rules, 2024, all electricity connections in the villages will be converted to smart metering and operated on post-paid mode. The DoPN will bill the consumers through what it said was the “IT billing system” and served to the VEMBs. The VEMBs, in turn, will deliver the bills to the individual consumers, collect the revenue and deposit to the designated DoPN branch office.
How it will operate in villages, with high degree of urbanisation, adjacent to cities/towns is still unclear.
But going by a new rule inserted in the amended Additional Conditions of Supply of Electricity to Villages (First Amendment) Rules, 2024, all the existing communitised/semi-communitised villages and sectors contiguous to Municipal Councils and Town Councils would cease to exist.
The DoPN has, till date, taken no effort to simplify to the consumers the implications, let alone launch a public awareness campaign.
Drawing from the acclaimed ‘Communitisation’ programme of the state government, electricity was first ‘communitised’ in the villages in 2002.
In practice, it translated into handing the job of billing or revenue collection to the village and colony councils through what came to known as Village Electricity Managements Boards, and Urban Electricity Managements Boards, respectively. Consumers falling in such communitised areas were billed in clusters through a common metering/billing point, known as Single Point Metering (SPM). It was subsequently introduced in select urban and semi-urban locations in 2004.
Communitisation conceptually implied sharing certain grassroots governance functions with the community, which was put into practice through the Nagaland Communitisation of Public Institutions and Services Act of 2002.
