MARGAO
Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Aquem Power House as beleaguered consumers rushed to stand in a serpentine queue to pay their bills as some of the cooperative societies have stopped accepting the payments after the government came out with a scheme in collaboration with TJSB Sahakari Bank.
A number of power consumers from Navelim and elsewhere from Salcete, who used to pay their bills through the cooperative societies, were taken aback when they approached the societies for their bill payment. They were told that the government’s new scheme had forced the societies to discontinue accepting the payments.
Left with no option with the last date of payment of bills ending on Tuesday, the power consumers all rushed to the Aquem Power House resulting in serpentine queues on almost all the floors of the building.
The power consumers, including senior citizens, had no clue about the sudden stoppage of acceptance of bill payment by the societies. They slammed the government for coming out with the scheme without creating any awareness amongst the power consumers.
A resident of Navelim Ronny Pereira pointed out that consumers rushed to the Aquem Power House since the local society was not accepting the bill payments. “The government should have given enough time to create the necessary awareness amongst the consumers before coming out with the scheme,” he said.
Another resident of Borda and former Margao Municipal Council councillor Ramdas Hazare lamented that the government did not take into account the hardships consumers would face by implementing the scheme at short notice. “This is unfair to the consumers. The government can introduce the on-line payments or any other measure, but there ought to have been awareness amongst the consumers before implementation of the new measure,” he said.
Electricity Executive Engineer, V S Kuncolienkar, however, sought to allay the apprehensions raised by the power consumers. “There are bound to be some problems initially to any scheme and I am confident that things will fall in place in a day or two,” he said.
When the media drew his attention to the fact that many a consumer will not be in a position to clear their payments with the last date of payments ending on Tuesday, Kuncolienkar said the department can work out a solution for the benefit of such consumers.
Representatives of cooperative credit societies had last week warned that the recently launched BBPS scheme by the electricity department in collaboration with TJSB Sahakari Bank will create unease amongst consumers.
