Discom ahead in digitisation

Tirupati: It is interesting to note that even before the controversial demonetisation and the subsequent stress on cashless transaction, the Andhra Pradesh Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (APSPDCL) went for cashless transaction as a policy and even achieved significant success in implementing it.

SPDCL saw the monthly payment of the bills of the all the HT consumers being paid through bank RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) system of funds transfer and also introducing mobile app for the other category customers more so domestic which has largest number to make the bill payment easy and transparent.

Speaking to The Hans India, SPDCL chairman and managing director HY Dora said, “Much before the government thrust on online transaction, our power distribution company took up as policy to promote the cashless payment of bills.

Now the payment of bills by the HT consumers is only through RTGS online payment. This saw 55 per cent of the total bill demand which was to the tune of Rs 1,100 crore per month is being received through online payment system ensuring transparency in HT sector which constitute bulk of bill demand.

Besides, it was SPDCL which introduced its own app for bill payment which was also before demonetisation, making the monthly power bill easy for the customers more so in the domestic sector which has the large number of 9.07 lakh consumers in SPDCL comprising eight districts-four from Rayalaseema region and Nellore, Prakasam, Guntur and Krishna districts.

After the demonetization, which gave impetus to cashless transaction, the SPDCL turned its attention to increasing online transactions to 100 per cent.

“Now we achieved nearly 70 per cent in cashless transaction,’’ Dora said adding that efforts were on to see that all the bill collection centres have PoS (point of sale) machines for bill payments.

“However, as there was a heavy demand for PoS after demonetisation, the bank managements are finding it difficult to provide the required number of PoS to SPDCL. Once we get adequate PoS, the online cashless transaction will further go up,” he explained.