the goan I network
PANAJI
Power Minister Nilesh Cabral on Sunday said that he will act tough on consumers who default in paying their electricity bills and also reprimand the department staffers if they come up with lame excuses and refrain from issuing power bills to consumers on time.
Stating that crores of rupees in recovery is pending from electricity consumers, the minister said, “We will stop this gross misuse.”
Irrespective of whether it is a private establishment or a government one, we are going to disconnect electricity connections if power bills are unpaid.
In case of outstanding bills, we will file RRC (Revenue Recovery Certificate) cases under land revenue code, appoint an advocate and start the recovery,” asserted Cabral.
He also pointed out that in many outstanding cases, original connection is disconnected and new connections
are given.
The minister also said that the department will do away with the practice of giving average electricity bills.
The JE, AE and other officials of the electricity department have been given a deadline till December 2019 to collect the pending payments after which the recovery process will commence, he
added.
Cabral completes one year as Power Minister this month. He took charge of the ministry in the last week of September last year.
Just last week, Mapusa police station went powerless for over four hours on Friday as the electricity department allegedly cut supply due to unpaid bills amounting to over Rs 19 lakh pending for over a year. Sources said that electricity bills of the Mapusa police station amounting to Rs 19,32,000 from June 2018 to July 2019 were due to be paid.
