Who is reponsible for transformer maintenance

I just had a talk with arguably the best known electrical consultant in the field in the city - a good friend of mine. He told me that for providing the connection (HT), BESCOM requires the developer to put up the entire installation, and maintain it for a year, after which it becomes the property of BESCOM. Thereafter, though they should be maintaining it, it never happens that way, and the burden falls on the consumer/ s (association, in your case). And, being a HT installation, the servicing and maintenance has to be carried out by a certified class-1 contractor, and the 'compliance report' submitted to the Electrical Inspectorate annually, when they send you the notice. There's a nominal fee for it all, which again you'll have to bear. But, far more is the bribe to be paid, without which the report will never get accepted - the usual places where they catch you are the 'Megger readings in the earth pits', which will never reach satisfactory levels till such times as the demands are complied with (well, part of the 'compliance' procedure, you may say :))) ). Most contractors will handle the job for you, and give you a bill for it all, adding their service charges for the 'special services' too.

Electrical Inspectorate was one of my constant nightmares when I was running my industry - check this.

Yes, it's all totally unfair, since it all adds up to the costs on the consumer. My friend has told me that he has an equitable solution for it all, and he will write up a note on it and send it to me within about a week. And, now that we have Mr Manivannan as the BESCOM MD, we can try getting them to accept it.
 

In our experience, you have to pay BESCOM guys to come and do anything on the transformers and pay for the materials.  Otherwise they just do a crappy bypass. If it is their property, why should we pay?  Some of the repair work has to be seen to be believed.  I saw an MCB at the transformer where one phase had been short circuited with wire. This is a really unfair situation.  

Very true. May be we need to take up with Mr Manivannan about issuing the necessary correctives.

Seems like if you are living in an apartment, there are additional penalties.  You have to treat sewage, maintain transformers, deal with all and sundry who come and demand bribe, pay for ayudha poojas, deal with extortion rackets by BWSSB valvemen and AEs

There are specialised estate management service providers, like 'Handyman', who undertake these servicezs on a contract basis. Even with that, the MC will have sufficient work on hand, ensuring they do a proper job. On the other hand, if the MC is undertaking it all by itself, it can be quite challenging, and will require one or two people working full time. In fact, I know of an apartment complex, where the general body decided to pay a fair retainer to a lady resident who was on the job full time.

We have an LT2 connection (not HT).

True - but, you have a transformer installation within your premises. And, though the transformer is the property of BESCOM, unless you ensure its maintenance, you'll be the one to suffer. And, if it fails, I expect they will ask you to replace it.  

However, they want to inspect the DG Sets, Lifts and something called the MSB which I am guessing is something like a Main Switch Breaker?  The inspection fee is a "nominal" Rs 16900/-.  

I verified - the fee structure is as listed here. For gensets - Rs 300 each (ours are all 100 KVA rated - I don't know if the fee will vary according to capacity); secondary cables, and switchboards (for the gensets) - Rs 600 + 600; lifts - Rs 1,000 each; MSB (main switch-board) - Rs 3000 each. So, totally, for us it came to Rs 17,100/- (last Feb - it's again due now). For all the rectification work, the contractor charged Rs 15,000/-, which, in the estimate of our estate manager, would have included about Rs 5,000/- for the Inspectorate lot.

The fees of Rs 17,100/- for very little work on ther part, is nothing short of day-light robbery - another instance, you may say, of the 'business of governance'. Mercifully, they are not charging for the inspection of the transformers. If they were, that would have been the height of insolence.

 

@ ManiSamuel  -  Firstly, welcome to PRAJA.

Now, what happens if any part of the HT installation provided by the developer (and transferred to BESCOM) fails and has to be replaced? Will the association have to undertake the job, and bear the cost? Why I am asking this is, if the answer is yes, the association will then have to make a provision for this also in its 'sinking fund' (equipmant renewal fund) collections. Is there any precedent known to you?
 

 BPC is a very good idea . The problem stems from the fact that standard specification of transformer that BESCOM procures is bushing on both HT & LT sides, whereas  transformer installed in most apartments have cable boxes on both sides. another problem is that rating of standard transformer in BESCOM is 100& 200 KVA, where as in bigger apartments  the rating is 500KVA. The immediate step BESCOM can take is to include 500KVA with cable boxes on both side in their procurement programme.

    At  present  since the installation has to handed over to BESCOM free of cost , losses in transformer is not given due weigtage while procuring . However, it is a continuing loss for BESCOM during the life of the transformer .   A 1% extra loss in 500KVA transformer will consume 1800 units (KWH) per month contributing to T&D losses.

Mani Samuel

Manivannan Sir....May your tribe increase.

Regards,

Imran.

@ Mr Manivannan

I feel raising the issue and fighting out is best option, as it will win the war for you, though you may lose the battle.

Sir, here I have detailed my experiences in handling various types of inspectors while running my own factory, years back. I don't think the scene is any different even now, since this is the info I gathered recently from the Homecare manager in the apartment complex where I reside (where I was the President of the association for the first three years, and currently a member of the MC), regarding the ways of the Electrical Inspectorate.

But, like I have stated, I have found it more 'convenenient and practical' to make this differentiation between bribes and mamools, and carry on a more peaceful life than if I were to confront the issue head on. But, my way of trying to eradicate it all, both bribes as well as mamools, is by raising the issue openly, and that's where PRAJA comes in.

Now, as the MD of BESCOM, I don't know if you have any say in the goings on in the Electrical Inspectorate. If you do, perhaps you would like to pursue implementation of the suggestion I have made of 'raaj-less inspection', by engaging chartered engineers.
 

Dear friends,

At the outset i appreciate the honesty and frankness of both sanjay sir and Murali sir. I also thank syed sir for giving me an opportunity to dwell more into this subject.

I do not live in Utopia. Indeed i tell my friends that, in India, if you have to live without bribing anybody, you at least need to be an IAS/IPS officer! Thus i fully understand and agree with the view points of both Sanjay and Murali sir.

Then what i was trying to convey? My humble view is that, while bribing is acceptable way of resolving things in the society, unless otherwise a small percentage of people raise a banner of revolt, we will not progress towards a better society. This small percentage is what i call as 'critical mass' for any rapid change process.

If this critical mass is not available, then the change process takes its evolutionary time, may be few more generations. Its our choice to have a rapid change which we can see in our lifetime or leave it for somebody else.

My wish is that committed citizens like praja's should take the burden of bringing this critical mass. The ingredients are already there in our members. It just needs some catalyst and time. Have not the time come? I am optimistic.

Regarding Syed's comments, i am ok with some disappointment in the starting, rather blowing my own trumpet and promising things. I would rather work quietly and allow actions to speak. When i require help,  advice or suggestions, i rather do it with the small, committed group who have the domain expertise, like the BPC (BESCOM participatory Council), than in such public forums where the energy gets dissipated. I would rather use this to get the pulse of the consumers, and for dissemination of appropriate information, than for making promises, and get into publicity domain.

Syed sir, if you can take time to attend the BPC meeting, you will know what are the slew of steps we are taking to make BESCOM more professional and better the coming year. And its not the MD who is doing that, its a team work. No worthwhile change in any organisation can be brought unless there is a committed team which shares the vision.

I remain

After taking over as the BESCOM MD, Mr Manivannan has already given effect to a suggestion (getting 'fire equipment' removed from the 'connected load' listing for computation of demand charges - check this), which evolved out of a debate on PRAJA.

Evolving out of the further discussions here, can we now make the following fresh suggestions:

1) The value of HT equipment (including transformers) required to be installed by a builder/ developer (whose value is of course being passed on to the individual buyers of flats/ homes), whose ownership automatically transfers to BESCOM at the end of a year, may be set off against common equipment/ area energy bills commencing from the time of  the ownership transfer.

2) In case of failure of BESCOM to replace, within a maximum of 48 hours, any part of the HT equipment (whose ownership has been transferred to BESCOM) that breaks down, the consumer may arrange for replacement, with the cost to be recovered from subsequent BESCOM common equipment/ area energy bills.

Though this will again amount to a further drain on BESCOM's resources, I expect Mr Manivannan will appreciate the fairness of the suggestions, and have them implemented.
 

 Something like how the BWSSB water is billed.

BWSSB sucks at pricing for water, hardly an example to follow. 

 BWSSB recognizes that one meter services multiple customers

Why is one meter servicing multiple customers? Why is it intelligent to make this manual subjective "adjustment" instead of metering & tracking every tenant seperately?

 Dear Mr. Manivannan,

After reading your discussions, I feel i am approaching the right person to help me out.

I live in an apartment in Jayanagar, and my apartment has a transformer unit in the front (main road) facing garden area, which my flat faces.

Connected to this unit are huge transformer poles on the footpath, just outside our garden.

I live on the 1st Floor, and my grandmother's room faces the transformer.

Since quite sometime, we have been observing a kind of a vibration in our floor.

We thought that our ground floor neighbours were working on a sewing machine or drilling something in the ceiling or something.  But the vibration never stopped. We did some observations, but there is absolutely no water pump, or machine in the garden area.

The vibrations make the bed and everything in the room vibrate, and makes sounds. On showing this matter to an architect, he said that it must be the problem of the transformer in the garden which is hardly 200 metres away.

This vibration needs to be resolved. Someone told me to go to Bescom office, but cautioned me that I will have to pay up heavy bribe for this. I was afraid of this, and hence was looking for going through the right channel. But how do we innocent consumers know the right channel?? Its like a maze.. And eventually we have to give up.

I request you to please look into this matter, as my grandmother, sister, and brother are facing alot of trouble in sleeping and studying.

The second issue is about the transformer poles on the footh path.

These are very old, and most of the times, have sparks coming out of them, and sometime big blasts too. This is a huge problem in the rains. Even the transformer on our opposite side  has the same problem. Cars parked outside, and kids playing in the garden are a big hazard. 

The only thing i request is, that we are a simple middle class family. And on behalf of all the other apartment owners in our building, 12 flats.. please remove the transformer unit and the adjoining poles from the front of our building and shift it to the opposite side, or any bungalow next to our flat, since all the bungalows have a big entrance and houses in the back of the property, it would not be a problem for them.

Please oblige and do the needful at the earliest.

Looking forward to your speedy reply,

Thanking you.

Yours sincerely,

Moiz

Mr. Manivannan is very reasonable.

We should not bother him for personal grievances unless the regular channel fails.

K.V.Pathy

Adverting to the comments made by Mr Mani Samuel and Mr Sanjay, on poor quality transformers, and losses thereof, I am excerpting below a comment made by me sometime back:

BESCOM is obliged to procure not less than 50% of its requirement of distribution transformers from KAVIKA. Incidentally, KAVIKA's original name was Government Electric Factory (GEF). Back in the 60s, the government decided that it needed to upgrade technologies and promoted NGEF (the N here being for 'New'). NGEF was a technology and market leader during its heydays. All the same, the government didn't bother to sustain it - politics playing a major part in its eventual death. The GEF (or KAVIKA), even with its outmoded technology and Jurassic age facilities, chugs along merrily, thanks to BESCOM patronage. For the full text, click here.

Well, protectionism accorded to the public sector, one had thought, was something of the past, But, unfortunately, it continues in namma Karnataka even today, costing the people and the economy dear. It's time somebody called the bluff, sooner the better.

Meter reading For the month of March was taken on 1st of april 2011,But for the month of April it was takne on 13th May 20111 that is full 13 day delay were in billing amount is almost double becouse of Higher slab rate.

IS Billing cycle has been Changed Or Is this a delebrate ploy to charge the customer more.

With Regards

Pradyumna Jaganmohan.

That's old story, Sanjay. Read Mr Mani Samuel's post of 4th March, 2011, scrolling above, and many more thereof.

Very plainly, BESCOM is giving a very unfair deal, in every respect, to consumers, and it's time the consumers collectively demanded that the services be privatised, more or less along the Delhi model.