PANAJI
Admitting that the Central and State government departments are the biggest electricity defaulters, with arrears mounting to close to Rs 450 crore, the Power Minister Ramakrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar on Monday told the House that dues to the tune of Rs 800 crores are pending for recovery. This also includes domestic, commercial and industrial consumers.
The Minister also said that the government has initiated Rs 3,500 crore infrastructure development, which is expected to bring down the inter-state transmission loss below seven per cent.
He said that the State has also moved a proposal to Centre for Rs 2,000 crore funding to upgrade power infrastructure.
The opposition cornered the State government over annual power tariff hike with no steps to recover the pending dues. The Legislators also pointed out to the government failure to take up measures to curb the transmission loss to the tune of 12 per cent.
Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai said that continuous power tariff hike has put significant burden on common citizens.
He pointed out that the power tariff has been hiked by 1.58 per cent in 2022-23, by 5.19 per cent in 2023-24 while the government has proposed a hike to the tune of 3.48 per cent for 2024-25.
So, in these three years, the cumulative hike is 10.05 per cent in power tariff. Are our salaries grown in this proportion? All are not government employees. How will the common man cope up with such a hike,” he questioned.
