Bhubaneswar: With power crisis looming large across the State, the State Government has asked all district Collectors to convene meetings of District Electricity Committee (DEC) regularly.
Additional Secretary Energy Sambit Parija has written a letter to all District Collectors for this purpose.
In 2021, the Department of Energy had issued a notification in which the District Electricity Committee (DEC) was re-constituted under the chairmanship of the senior most Member of Parliament (MP) of the district to review and coordinate overall development of power supply infrastructure in the district in accordance with the schemes of the Government.
While the Collector of the district is the Member Secretary of DEC, the Chief Engineer/Superintending Engineer of the DISCOM operating in the district has been made the Convener of the panel.
“It has been made categorically clear in the notification dt. 29.11.2021 that it is the responsibility of the Member Secretary and Convener to convene the meeting of the DEC on a regular basis and issue minutes on time,” Parija said.
So far, no minutes of the meeting of DEC of any district have been received in this department since the reconstitution of DEC, he said.
The letter also pointed out that in many districts, the concerned Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assembly (who happen to be the chairperson and members of the DEC) are unaware of the existence of such a committee.
“This reveals that no follow up action has been taken at the district level to intimate the chairperson and other members regarding reconstitution of the DEC of the district,” he said.
Moreover, Parija said, it is also presumed that as per requirement, the meetings of DEC have not been regularly convened for which the objectives of DECs at the level of districts are not being fulfilled.
Therefore, he requested again the Collectors to take prompt action to intimate the Chairperson/Members regarding re-constitution of DEC in the district and take steps to convene the meetings of DEC at regular intervals for deliberation regarding overall development of power supply infrastructure in the district in accordance with the schemes of the Government and furnish minutes thereof to this department for reference.