HCL Infosystems Puts Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board’s Online Billing System To Test

By: Ravinder Makhaik

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CM Inaugurates data centre, call centre

Shimla: Chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal on Wednesday inaugurated a pilot online billing system for HP state electricity board (HPSEB) that has been set up by HCL Infosystems and would enable consumers to pay their bills at any centre operated by the board.

The pilot project presently only covers the consumers of Shimla city and would be extended to the entire state.

Along with the payment facility, a call centre has also been made functional that would enable consumers to register their complaints over a toll free number.

The 12 seater call centre is part of the about Rs 24 crore computerisation project which HPSEB had awarded to HCL Infosystems in June 2006.

An pilot project under revised costs of Rs 5.01 Crore has been implemented in the IT package that was awarded to us, said an HCL Infosystems spokesman.

A centralised data and call centre under the package terms has been established at Vidyut Bhawan, said Anurag Prasher, HPSEB spokesman. The pilot has been implemented under accelerated power development program.

Functions such as meter reading, billing and collection, management information system redressal of consumer grievances, establishing of IT enabled consumer service centres have been made fully functional under the pilot project covering 10 sub-divisons of Shimla.

About 70,000 consumers in and around Shimla would be able to pay their bills from anywhere, either a web portal of HPSEB or at any sub-division irrespective of the area of control, said Prahser.

For bringing all the 122 sub-divisions online covering about 11 lakh consumers, a second part of the remaining about Rs 19 crore project would start getting implemented from April 2009, he added.

Through computerisation, spot billing and implementing online bill payments systems, HPSEB hopes to reduce its transmission and distribution losses to less than 10 percent.