A decision to this effect was taken at the Tangedco’s board meeting held on January 19 to reorient the existing electricity distribution regions and electricity distribution circles of Tangedco to ease down in the balancing works and administration process without increasing the operating staff strength.

A senior Tangedco official said the creation of the new distribution regions was to redress the administrative issues and balance the workload among the section offices, the division and section offices of the utility will be reorganised in such a way that, one distribution region will cover three or four districts and one electricity distribution the circle will be completely covered under one district.

The official said the Tiruchy Distribution Region covers seven districts while the Madurai region is spread over five districts. “Creation of new regions will help the officials to monitor the works underway in a better way,” the official added.

However, the trade unions in the Tangedco said the creation of new regions alone would not solve the workload issues. “There are over 52,000 vacant posts across various cadres in the Tangedco. Of the total vacancies, over 37,000 vacancies consist of field workers. With such a huge number of vacancies, how will the workload ease? The need of the hour is to fill up vacant posts and it will help improve the consumer service like the prompt attending of complaints,” the union representative said.