Nearly two dozen state departments have been identified among the defaulters for non payment of power tariff over a long period of time. Almost all departments including the Police Department are among the defaulters. Nearly 1366 crore rupees are shown as total amount outstanding against the departments. However details of how much are outstanding against each defaulting department is not available. It is surprising that at the time of allocation of funds to the departments, a good percentage is earmarked for expenditures on account of power supply. Yet the departments fail to pay electric bills and leave the arrears to accumulate over a period of time. Ours is a power starved state and we have to buy power from neighbouring Punjab. We have to run to New Delhi every now and then and seek additional funds to meet our power requirements. We have large number of population in the rural and far flung areas that don’t have electricity for most of the time. And yet with this background, the departments fail to make tariff payments. Nothing can be more disappointing.
PDD has framed rules for punishing consumers in case they fail to pay the power tariff in time. In many cases these rules are imposed. It is good that rules are obeyed. But why do the functionaries of PDD make discrimination between the influential and non-influential or between the normal consumers and the Government departments. There is no justification for allowing the departments go without punitive punishment. The fact is that we are suffering huge loss of electric revenue owing to pilferage, loss in transmission and distribution and non payment of bills by consumers etc. This situation has to change because we don’t see a bright prospect of electric power supply in near future. We are deficit of power in the state and we owe huge amount to the Punjab government for power purchase. Only half of electric power connections are metered so far and we need to bring power to many far off villages in the State. For us each rupee raised and saved for investment in power industry is of exceptional importance. Keeping this situation in mind, the Government should issue a notification setting a deadline for payment of tariff arrears by the departments failing which the law should take its natural course.
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