Revenue collection in the Jamshedpur circle of the Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (JBVNL) is likely to suffer from April as there are no takers for the tender inviting firms to read meters and general energy bills.

Currently, private agency Quess Corporation is carrying out the job of meter reading and bill generation for the JBVNL’s Jamshedpur circle. But, Quess Corporation’s three-year contract expires on March 31, 2020.

No private firm so far has shown interest in the tender for the job that the state discom issued in January for its Jamshedpur circle, the largest revenue generating circle in Jharkhand.

Superintending engineer of the JBVNL’s Jamshedpur circle, Sudhanshu Kumar, admitted there were no takers for the job yet.

“We are helpless if no private firm takes an interest in the job of meter reading and bill generation. We are trying to find out a way out, but as of now it seems it will be a difficult task to maintain the level of revenue generation in the circle if no one turns up for the job,” Kumar told The Telegraph. JBVNL headquarters in Ranchi had laid down the terms and conditions of tender, the superintending engineer said when asked, but declined to divulge them.

An insider in the JBVNL office said the terms and conditions were too stringent for any private agency to show interest in the job.

“For example, one of the conditions laid down this time is that if the outsourced agency can’t collect the bill from a sector or gets late doing so, it (the agency) has to pay penalty. I think private firms are all scared of the new terms and conditions,” the insider said. “Quess Corporation had an easier time.”

In the Jamshedpur circle, there are about 2.8 lakh JBVNL consumers, including a large number of industrial and commercial consumers from whom about Rs 65 crore is collected as revenue per month.

According to sources in the JBVNL, the monthly revenue collection from the Jamshedpur circle on an average was Rs 56 crore in 2014 when the cost of per unit electricity was Rs 3.25. But the revenue has not crossed Rs 65 crore despite the hike in per-unit electricity to Rs 6.25 since 2018.

“That’s why many point to loopholes in revenue collection,” the JBVNL insider said. “But if an agency has to pay fines, it is obviously on the defensive from the start.”