Chandigarh Tribune: Ludhiana: Thursday,
September 29, 2016.
The audit
team from the office of the Auditor General, Punjab, has taken strong exception
to huge outstanding defaulting amount of more than Rs 43 crore at the end of
March 2015 under the areas falling in the City East circle of Punjab State
Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) here.
While the
arrears amounting to Rs 18.52 crore were outstanding against consumers for less
than a year, a sum of Rs 8.85 crore and Rs 15.65 crore stood unrecovered for
one to three years and more than three years, respectively.
The copy of
the audit report for the financial year 2014-15, obtained under the Right to
Information Act by Rohit Sabharwal, president, Council of RTI Activists,
indicated that the outstanding amount of Rs 43.03 crore pertained to 27,762
consumers. These included 677 cases under litigation (Rs 21.51 crore), 58 cases
pending with disputes settlement committees (Rs 1.31 crore), 97 government
departments (Rs 2.91 crore), 2,937 permanent disconnection (PDCO) cases (Rs
4.63 crore and 23,993 miscellaneous cases (Rs 12.65 crore.
Giving
category-wise breakup of arrears, the audit report noted that consumers under
domestic category (DS) had unpaid dues worth Rs 11.53 crore, non-residential
supply (NRS) Rs 6.61 crore, industrial (MS and LS) Rs 24.68 crore and others Rs
19.76 lakh.
While
emphasising on the PSPCL authorities to intimate (place on record) the manner
in which recovery of arrears was proposed to be effected, the auditors also
sought to be apprised with reasons for the non-recovery of such huge amount
which was outstanding against various consumers for years together.
In the
concluding remarks, the audit report commented: “PSPCL being a commercial
organisation can ill-afford to allow accumulation of dues from consumers. It
is, therefore, imperative that every effort is made by the officers to see that
consumers make the payment of their dues as soon as these become due. Necessary
steps need to be taken as per instruction contained in the Electricity Supply
Manual by the staff concerned so that dues do not accumulate and arrears do not
become bad debts or time-barred.”
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