Power Dept grapples with overdue payments, govt offices top the list

PANAJI

The Goa electricity department has been struggling to collect energy consumption dues from its consumers and thousands, including nearly 10,000 central and State government offices and those of its corporations.  

Power Minister Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar listed as many as 40,000 commercial consumers and nearly 9,500 government offices and government-owned corporations as major defaulters in paying their power dues.  

This is after nearly 4,500 commercial consumers had already availed of the one-time-settlement scheme (OTS) launched by the power department in 2020 which waived off all the penalties and interest charges.  

Dhavalikar also said that around 6,700 domestic consumers also availed of the 

OTS scheme.  

The power minister furnished the information to an unstarred question tabled by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Benaulim MLA, Venzy Viegas in the just concluded budget session of the Goa legislative assembly.  

The power department has been struggling to be in the green and has regularly been subsidized by the State government through budgetary provisions to the tune of Rs 300-400 crore annually.  

The total dues owed to the department by defaulters meanwhile has skyrocketed to over Rs 643 crore, a little less than one-third of it from domestic consumers.  

Government entities, both State and Central, owe the electricity department a whopping Rs 355 crore while bills of commercial users are pending to the tune of Rs 53 crore and another Rs 26 crore is due from industrial consumers.