Audit Reports
Uttar Pradesh
Performance Audit Report No. 3 of 2021 on “Centralised Information Technology Billing System Being Operated by State Power Utilities” in Uttar Pradesh
Overview
The Performance Audit Report No. 03 of 2021 on “Centralised Information Technology Billing System being operated by State Power Utilities” of the Comptroller and Audit General of India, Government of Uttar Pradesh has been prepared under Section 19A of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (Duties, Powers and Conditions of Service) Act, 1971 for laying in Uttar Pradesh State Legislature. This Report contains six chapters as detailed below:
Chapter-I: Introduction
The performance audit covered period of five years i.e. from 2014-15 to 2018‑19 to examine whether the process of development and acquisition of IT system was transparent, economic and competitive; whether business rules were properly mapped and all required functionalities were provided in the IT application; and whether the implementation of the IT system led to achievement of organisational objectives.
Chapter-II: IT enabled energy accounting and auditing
The Company failed to complete/update the baseline data of consumers, electrical assets and automated metering in R-APDRP System. As a result, the system-generated AT&C loss report was highly erratic. Further, in the Non R-APDRP billing system, there is no automated system of energy accounting, auditing and generation of AT&C loss report.
Chapter-III: General Controls
The Company did not formulate and adopt essential IT policies with respect to Human Resource responsible for managing IT activities, Document Retention, IT Security, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan. Confidentiality in the IT system was compromised as the Company failed to restrict the log on sessions.
Chapter-IV: Application Controls
An analysis of the electronic billing data for the period from April 2018 to March 2019 revealed that the IT systems failed in mapping of pertinent and correct business rules of the Company which adversely affected the interests of the stakeholders such as Government, Company and Consumers.
Chapter-V: Input Controls and Validation Checks
The Company did not ensure validation checks for various data inputs. This resulted in deficient consumers’ database and duplicate entries causing blocking of revenue realisation due to non-traceability of consumers. Further, non-linking of consumers to their respective categories of Rate Schedule in both the IT billing systems caused loss of substantial revenue.
Chapter-VI: Other Issues
The Company’s internal controls leave much to be desired as evidenced by the failure of the Company to deploy IT billing systems in generation of meter-read plan for optimisation of billing, monitoring of realisation of arrears and execution of permanent disconnection and raising bills on actual consumption basis and installation of prepaid meters for Government consumers.
Recommendations:
The Government has accepted seven recommendations (out of a total of eight recommendations) in the Exit Conference, whereas their response to one recommendation is awaited.
Download Audit Report
- Table of Content
- Preface
- Executive Summary
- Chapter-I: Introduction
- Chapter-II: IT enabled energy accounting and auditing
- Chapter-III: General Controls
- Chapter-IV: Application Controls
- Chapter-V: Input Controls and Validation Checks
- Chapter-VI: Other Issues
- List of Abbreviations
- Appendices
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