BHUBANESWAR: After recovery of Rs 72.66 crore arrears from defaulting consumers, the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) has announced 10 days break in its ongoing disconnection drive.
"In the first phase of the special drive to recover pending electricity bills, CESU disconnected power supply to 21,339 consumers and collected an arrear of Rs 72.66 crore. This includes Rs 7.36 crore online payments," said CESU CEO Arun Bothra.
Announcing 10 days relaxation at a media conference here, Bothra said the second phase disconnection drive will start from February 16. "We are giving another opportunity to the consumers to clear their arrear bills before February 17 to avoid power disconnection," Bothra said.
He said the utility disconnected power supply to the premises of 21,339 defaulting consumers out of which power supply was restored to 9,341 consumers after payment of dues in full or part.
On an average, 480 special disconnection squads were carrying out in all the 247 Sections and visited the premises of 1,62,801 defaulting consumers falling under commercial, industrial and high value domestic category.
The drive, conducted for 18 days from January 16 to February 5 in all the 20 divisions of the utility, was hassle-free due to the cooperation of consumers and other stakeholders.
Bothra said CESU has received applications from 35,277 consumers for bill revision and 1,00,694 consumers have requested for paying their arrear dues in instalments. Teams have been formed at sub-division and division level to resolve all the bill disputes and consumer grievance cases received during this period in next 10 days.
With a massive arrear of Rs 1,971 crore pending on consumers for years together, the power distribution company is under acute financial stress and unable to pay its bulk supply bill to Gridco. Over Rs 1,023 crore of pending dues are against domestic consumers who constitute 92 per cent of the total defaulters.
The utility operating in nine revenue districts including part of Jajpur has a consumer base of 27 lakh. Bothra welcomed the cooperation of collectors and superintendents of police of the nine districts during the special drive.