Under fire after the recent deaths of a mother and her baby due to electrocution, the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) said that in the last year, since November 2022, it has conducted the maintenance of 4,768 11 KV feeders under its Feeder Maintenance Abhiyaana (FMA) out of the total 6,217 feeders present in its jurisdiction. This amounts to the conducting of maintenance of 76.69% of 11 KV feeders.
If the feeders that have been added to the network in the last one year are excluded, then Bescom claims that maintenance work on around 97% of 11 KV feeders have been conducted.
After the recent electrocution of 23-year-old Soundharya and her nine-month-old daughter near Hope Farm from a live wire that had snapped, the public has been demanding an audit of the electrical infrastructure in the city. The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) also mandates the Safety or Technical Audit of 11 KV feeders including Distribution Transformer Centres (DTC) to be undertaken by distribution licensees at least once every year.
The FMA, which was conducted in two phases between November and December 2022, and the extended phase which was carried out from June 15, 2023 to November 15, included trimming of HT lines, replacement or repair of slanted and deteriorated poles, rectification of DTCs and repair of loose spans.
Out of the 19,177 slanted HT poles that have been identified by Bescom during the campaign, 17,506 have been fixed so far while 1,149 deteriorated HT poles have been fixed out of the 2,963 that were identified. Similarly, out of 10,930 slanted LT poles, 10,084 have been fixed and out of 3,594 deteriorated LT poles, 3,163 have been fixed, the data showed. The officials also said that 58,004 DTCs out of the 62,720 which were inspected have been rectified.
According to Bescom officials, the maintenance campaign also includes the audit mandated by the KERC. “This (maintenance) is a continuous process as different issues crop up every three to six months in different feeders. We are undertaking maintenance processes rigorously to avoid any unforeseen accidents. The maintenance and attending of all the remaining components will be taken up as a priority and completed soon,” said Mahantesh Bilagi, Managing Director, Bescom.
The Energy Department also issued a circular to escoms and transmission corporations to take steps to avoid electrocution accidents in the future as the preliminary investigations have pointed out that the negligence of safety protocols caused the accident at Hope Farm. These measures include training substation staff about the prevention of electrical accidents, creating awareness among the public about electrical accidents, and regular maintenance of electrical grids as per the safety manual of KERC and KPTCL.
Long way to go for UG lines
With the overhead (OH) line snapping and causing the electrocution in Soundharya’s case, many citizens also raised questions about the status of Bescom’s long-time project of conversion of OH lines into underground (UG) lines.
The data provided by Bescom revealed that out of the 6,217 11 KV feeders, only 1,541 feeders have complete UG lines while 296 feeders have both OH and UG lines. However, a majority of 4,380 feeders still only have OH lines in the Bescom region.
Third party verification
Experts said that the reports given by Bescom should be verified by a third party. “There is no way that they have carried out maintenance on as many feeders as they have claimed. If one goes out for a walk on the streets, one can see that right from faulty transformers, there are many things to be fixed. KERC should call for a third party to audit and verify the records of change and replacement maintained by Bescom,” said M.G. Prabhakar, a former member of the advisory committee, KERC.
