Tata Power plans to invest Rs 850-crore till 2013 to beef up generation, transmission and distribution, a senior company official told PTI.
The company will be investing the amount over three years (2010-2013) to enhance its generation, transmission and distribution capabilities, said Executive Director (Operations) S Padmanabhan.
The company is also "eyeing a customer-base of close to 1,40,000 by March 2011" from the existing clientele of 85,000, he added. Padmanabhan said more than 50,000 customers have shifted to Tata Power from its competitor RInfra in recent months.
Besides, to improve the power supply, the company has earmarked Rs 300-crore each for transmission and distribution, while Rs 250-crore will be invested in raising generation capacity, he said.
Tata Power is witnessing a significant market response and this is evident from the nearly 1,200-calls per day received by the company's officials (seeking its power) over the last two weekends, Padmanabhan said.
"We will be laying a new network for all our new customers. In the current financial year, we will be laying around 110 circuit kilometres of network," the Tata Power official said.
The cost of laying one-kilometre a network works out to around Rs 1 crore, he said.
The company has also set up 17 consumer sub-stations in the last six-months to support its expansion.
Besides, to facilitate customers' change-over from RInfra to Tata Power, it has set up two call-centres capable of handling 1,000 calls per day, five customer-care centres, 40 drop-boxes and kiosks.
"We have 40 officials who go to small colonies, including slums, to collect payments and also vans to go to different places to fill-up forms. Our aim is to create infrastructure, which will make it easy for people to become Tata Power customers," Padmanabhan said.
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