Tripura power utility holds back 40% salary of 24 staffers for ‘poor performance’

AGARTALA: The Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) has held back 40% salaries of 24 employees due to their poor performance in billing and poor revenue generation, said managing director in-charge of TSECL Debasish Sarkar.

Sarkar said the performance of 14 out of 66 sub divisions of TSECL was dismal and in order to nudge employees to improve productivity, 40% salaries of 24 officials were withheld. Sarkar said a review of the billing for Tripura’s power consumers, the corporation found that the recent billing efficiency was only 70%.

There are 9.32 lakh power consumers in the state.

“Salaries of managers and senior managers were withheld, and this is not a salary cut. It’s a warning to them to boost their performance. Their salaries will be released once they improve their performance,” said Sarkar.

A TSECL statement said the poor billing performance related to April.

“Revenue realization from consumers is the basic need for TSECL towards its survival as it is a commercial organisation in nature. In view of poor billing performance in April 2022 by some sub-divisions, overall performance of the corporation as far as revenue realization is concerned has deteriorated a lot in spite of repeated persuasion from the corporate office in this regard. If such trend continues in the Corporation, it will be very difficult for the corporation to stay alive, “ the statement said.

The corporation’s employees said it was illegal.

Tripura Power Engineers Association general secretary Subir Chakraborty said the action taken by the corporation was in violation of government guidelines. “ No one should act beyond the law. It was violation of government guidelines, “ said Chakraborty.

The association said the corporation estimated the underperformance of certain sectors by calculating all active and temporary connections including the connections that are permanently and temporarily disconnected.

“Only active connections need to be considered to ascertain bill generation. We will soon talk to the management about the mismatch, “ said a member of the association on the condition of anonymity.