Imphal, November 19 2010: For the first time in the State, pre-paid electricity meter reader would be installed in some selected areas of the capital city.

A source in Power Department informed that pre-paid meters would be fitted for consumers residing in Paona Keithel, Thangal Keithel and Babupara areas as soon as the underground power cable laying work being undertaken at these areas is completed.

The new initiative has been taken up in view of the large number of unauthorised power consumers in Imphal area.

However, Power Department is unable to check these unauthorised connections at the moment.

It is believed that laying power cables underneath Earth can control power theft to some extent.

Even as Government of Manipur has been spending Rs 10 crores every month in purchasing power, multiple crores of rupees are being indebted to consumers as a vast majority of them have not been paying power taxes.

Under pre-paid meter reading system, power taxes would be collected in advance.

As such, revenue collection from power consumers can be improved considerably, conveyed the source.

For upgrading the Yurembam power sub-station from its existing capacity of 132/33 KV to 400 KV, two transformers of capacity 31.5 MV each would be installed.

Both the transformers and requisite materials for their installation have been procured.

However, installation of the two power transformers requires construction of two control rooms.

The proposal for construction of the two requisite control rooms has been cleared by the Public Investment Board (PIB).

Moreover, tender process has also been initiated at the global level so that installation of the two tranformers and construction of the two control rooms can be started from next year.

The Yurembam sub-station would be put out of operation when upgradation process is on.

As such, power supply from the sub-station would be disrupted during the period of upgradation.

During this period of upgradation, Kongba sub-station would be used in place of Yurembam sub-station.

Notably, the entire power supply to Manipur is obtained from Dimapur-Imphal line and Leimatak line.

The State receives 45-50 MW of power from Dimapur-Imphal line during night in addition to another 20 to 25 MW from Leimatak line.

From the two lines, the State receives just around 80 MW of power during night.

As this quantity of power is much lower than the actual requirement of the State, there would be load shedding in the coming months too, added the source.

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