HYDERABAD: As many as 138 cash-strapped Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in the State have not cleared Rs 90 crore outstanding bills of the Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a wing of Ministry of Power, for maintaining street lights. This is despite repeated letters written by EESL to the Telangana government, asking it to clear the dues.
Of a total of Rs 220 crore bills, only Rs 130 crore bills have been cleared. The Khammam Municipal Corporation leads the list of ULBs which have not cleared these bills with Rs 5.16 crore pending dues followed by Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation (Rs 4.89 crore), Nalgonda (Rs 4.63 crore), Mahbubnagar (Rs 4.17 crore), Badangpet (Rs 2.65 crore), Kamareddy (Rs 2.57 crore), Miryalaguda (Rs 2.38 crore), Karimanagar (Rs 2.35 crore), Armoor (Rs 2.34 crore), Suryapet (Rs 2.15 crore), Jalpally (Rs 2.15 crore) and Sangareddy (Rs 2.04 crore).The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and Mulugu Municipal Corporation are not in this list.
MAUD Dept takes note
Following a series of letters from the EESL, the Municipal Administration and Urban Devlopment Department took a serious view of the issue and instructed the Municipal Commissioners of these ULBs to immediately clear the pending dues.
“Instructions have already been given to all the Municipal Commissioners to reconcile all the dues, duly deducting the penalties if any imposed and clear the outstanding dues immediately on a pro-rata basis along with regular payments meeting the same from the general funds as per the availability without fail. The dues should be paid until the month of June, 2022. The ULBs have also been instructed to make payment to EESL on a timely basis,” informed a source.
EESL is responsible for implementation of the Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP) or the UJALA scheme. The basic objective of the EESL is to implement energy efficient projects on turnkey basis in association with municipal corporations and municipalities.