Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 11: Minister of State for Power Vikar Rasool today said that electricity bills/ arrears worth Rs 6.92 crore were pending against Kashmir migrants residing at Jagti township and they will be provided adequate power supply only if they pay the bills.
Minister was responding to the calling attention notice of NC member Vijay Bakaya, who alleged that 18 hour power cut is being imposed at Jagti and the dwellers were facing lot of problems. The Minister pointed out that power scenario was not good in the State and Government can not afford to provide free power. Only one section of society can not be given a concession at the cost of others.
The Minister said the grievances of the Jagti township migrants shall be redressed if either the individual allottees of the flats pay the electric charges as per their consumption or the Relief Organisation pay for the energy supplied to the town. He said as per record 232.195 Lus of energy has been supplied to the township from April 2011 to December 2012, which has been billed to the tune of Rs 691.63 lakh. This amount is yet to be paid by them.
He further pointed out that power supply timings to Jagti is from 7 am to -9 am , then from 12 noon to 3 pm and then 7.30 to 10.30 pm, which comes out to be 8 hours a day. He said there are 4224 number of flats out of which 3484 have been metered. Inspite of persuation by the PDD officials, none of the migrant occupants of flats have executed an agreement with the department nor are they paying for the power they consume. The Minister however, claimed that uninterrupted supply of power was provided to the area during Shivratri festival.
The MLC however, said that since migrants from other camps here are not being charged for power why those residing at Jagti are being pressurized to deposit arrears from the day one they entered there. He demanded that some way out be discovered to settle their grievances. The `chair’ also asked the Minister to find the way out to settle the issue.
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