Waive off power tariff of poor consumers: Billawaria

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 24: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leader, Baldev Singh Billawaria has appealed the UT Government to completely waive off the electricity bill of those consumers who have been charged lakhs of Rupees as power tariff.
Billawaria at a press conference here, today said that why the Department failed to collect the tariff from time to time from consumers so that the amount would have not accumulated in lakhs. He said for these lapses the Department is responsible and not the consumers.
He said that a few days ago he visited various areas and was astonished to see that one person who is living in a single room has received the electricity bill of Rs five lakh while the cost of his room will not be five lakh.
He urged the UT Government to completely waive off the bill of such consumers up to January 2022 and the same should be recovered from those officers who failed to collect the tariff from consumers previously.
He said those parties who where in power earlier also did not take any steps to recover the power arrears from the consumers and now the poor consumers are unable to pay such hefty amount.
He also said that earlier there were 20 to 21 hour power cuts in Jammu so there is no logic in charging the tariff from the people when there was almost blackout for entire time.
But since the Central Government led by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has strengthened the power infrastructure the people can feel and see the difference in development, which was not seen in the tenure of the previous Governments. Billawaria said that after converting the State of Jammu and Kashmir into UTs, various schemes are being introduced for the welfare of the general public. He said that the way Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha is doing a lot of work for the welfare of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, he (LG) will definitely look into this matter as well.