Consisting of 5 women executive engineers, 'Damini Squad' recovers Rs 3.98 cr in bill collection drives, detects cases of electricity misuse and amicably resolves genuine consumer grouses
Consisting of 5 women executive engineers, 'Damini Squad' recovers Rs 3.98 cr in bill collection drives, detects cases of electricity misuse and amicably resolves genuine consumer grouses
Ever had the staff of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) raise your hackles by turning up at your place to gruffly ask for bill payment or to simply "check your meter"? While this practice of knocking on doors will not stop, what may be different next time is that you may not end up arguing with khaki-clad linemen but instead talking to articulate and polite women who will patiently look for discrepancies in your power consumption. But do not be fooled, for these women can and will pull you up if they find something wrong, albeit in a civilised manner. Such a squad of women already exists and it has delivered results for the MSEDCL like never before. 
'Light' work:u00a0 Damini Squad members Mrunal Dabak, Rajashree Gaikwad,
squad head Assistant Engineer Priya Gokhale along with security guard
Mohan Nikam
Called the Damini squad, it is the MSEDCL's pride and joy. It comprises of a team of five women executive engineers (EEs) who do everything from bill arrear collection, checking illegal power connections and resolving billing disputes of consumers.u00a0Started in January last year by MSEDCL Managing Director Ajoy Mehta for the entire state, the purpose of Damini Squad was to assist the regular staff in such work and connect with the average power consumer in a humane manner. A senior MSEDCL official from Mumbai said that consumers usually feel comfortable with women and disputes do not take an ugly turn.
"We have several cases where MSEDCL staff were manhandled or beaten whenever they conducted spot visits to check connections. But seeing women, people lower their guard and cases are solved amicably. This works best with men, since they will think twice before laying hands on a woman. However, we do deploy an armed security guard for extra safety," said the official, requesting anonymity. The docile-looking women of the Damini Squad have turned out to be some of the best minds in detecting illegal power consumption practices, having proved their mettle time and again.
The Pune division's Damini Squad raked in Rs 3.98 crore in arrear collection drives and by detecting illegal connections. This amount is the highest compared to all Damini Squads throughout the state. Assistant Engineer Priya Gokhale, who heads the squad, said that one of the main tasks was to keep tabs on the bill collection agencies to which MSEDCL has outsourced the work. "We collate the bill reading made by the private firm as well as MSEDCL and look for discrepancies. Areas where meter reading does not take place is also one of our targets, since people themselves complain that they haven't been receiving their bills.
Several cases where people have received inflated bills have also been resolved by us," she said. Gokhale added that some consumers take a residential connection but then run commercial establishments. "Tariffs for both are different and we keep a check on the consumption trend of suspected consumers. We then approach him or her and get it corrected and even impose fines in several cases," she said.
Sterling performance
Residential connections checked since Oct: 1,767
Commercial connections checked: 2,912
Cases of discrepancies like tariff change from residential to commercial detected: 81
Cases where reading was not taken: 322
Cases of wrong reading taken: 101
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