Wesco disconnection drive from February 18 

In its crackdown on power bill defaulters, the Western Electricity Supply Company (Wesco) has decided to start a disconnection drive from February 18. The arrears have already crossed `2000 crore.
For representational purpose (Photo | EPS)
For representational purpose (Photo | EPS)

SAMBALPUR: In its crackdown on power bill defaulters, the Western Electricity Supply Company (Wesco) has decided to start a disconnection drive from February 18.

The arrears have already crossed Rs 2000 crore.

Informing this to mediapersons here on Saturday, the authorised officer of Wesco, Tapas Pattanaik said funds crunch has become a major roadblock for the distcom in providing quality service to consumers.

“If the dues are not collected soon, Wesco will face difficulty in running the show,” he said. The distcom has an accumulated arrear of Rs 2,117 crore on domestic and commercial consumers besides Rs 406 crore on the industrial consumers.

According to official reports, Wesco has 17,70,211 domestic consumers in Sambalpur, Sonepur, Bargarh, Sundargarh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Nuapada, Kalahandi and Balangir.

Of them, 10,80,933 consumers have not paid their electricity bills amounting upto Rs 1984.45 crore.

Similarly, there are 81,125 commercial consumers in the nine districts of which, 46,093 have pending bills amounting to Rs 132.65 crore. 

This apart, out of 920 High Tension (HT) industrial consumers, 148 have pending electricity bills.

Of the total 34 Extra High Tension (EHT) industrial consumers, three industrial houses have huge arrears to clear. Government offices in the districts have to clear Rs 61 crore of pending power dues.

“We have already served notices on the defaulter consumers and asked them to pay their arrear by February 17. We do not want the customer to face inconveniences for which we have been requesting them several times to clear their dues,” Pattanaik said.

 The consumers can contact the sub-divisional officers (SDO) of their areas if they want to pay the pending arrear phasewise or have grievances regarding bills, he added. 

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