The state government is concerned about outstanding bills with various stakeholders amounting to a whopping Rs 23,000 crore. The energy department is finding it difficult to recover the amount which could help bring down tariff.
“A total Rs 23,000 crore is the outstanding electricity bill of which Rs12,000 crore is pending with farmers, Rs 3,000 crore is pending with Mula Pravara Electric Coop Society, Rs 5,000 crore with default customers whose electricity has been permanently disconnected and Rs1,000 crore with defunct water supply schemes,” said energy minister Chandrashekhar Bavankule.
The minister said there should be flexibility in ordinary police stations to register power theft. “There are six special police stations at present where cases of power theft and others are registered. We are trying to get the facility in ordinary police stations too. This will save a lot of power and we do not have to conduct forced load shedding,” he said.
Mr Bavankule informed that the government was going to introduce “Krishi Sanjivani Yojana 2014” to help agriculture consumers. “This will help recover the outstanding amount from agricultural consumers. We are asking them to pay 50 per cent of bill amount till March 31, 2014 and the remaining amount will be paid by the government. We will waive off interest and fine of consumers if they pay 50 per cent. We are hoping that 6.67 lakh agricultural consumers will benefit,” he said.
