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Govt owes ₹360 cr to Haryana power dept: Minister Ranjit Singh
Various government departments in the state owe ₹360 crore to the electricity department, power and jails minister Ranjit Singh said while addressing mediapersons
Various government departments in the state owe ₹360 crore to the electricity department, power and jails minister Ranjit Singh said while addressing mediapersons during the first bijli panchayat in Hisar on Sunday.
The defaulting departments include the secretariat and government hospitals, which constantly need electricity and the government cannot disconnect the supply to speed up recovery, he added.
He added that the pending dues of the government departments were around ₹1,500 crore during the Congress regime but the saffron party managed to bring it down.
Speaking on the bijli panchayat, the minister said it is a unique initiative to recover pending dues from those villages that are in the defaulters’ list. He said the condition of Sirsa and Fatehabad is good but in Rohtak, Sonepat, Jind and Bhiwani, villagers were not paying theur bills so the electricity department was forced to disconnect their supply.
“Our main motive is to get them to pay their dues so that they can enjoy 24-hour power supply,” the minister said.
Ranjit Singh further said that after he became the power and jails minister, the line losses have come down from 30% to 14%. He said his target is to bring it further down to 7%.
“According to the data of rural domestic consumers, the total pending amount is ₹2,900 crore, of which ₹95 crore is of farmers using tubewells. We are meeting the panchayat members of villages that are on the defaulters’ list and will ask them how they will pay the amount.”
As many as 119 villages attended the bijli panchayat on Sunday. They accepted that they were defaulting on payments and said that they wanted to pay the bills under a settlement scheme. During an interaction with the panchayat members, “Be it on EMI basis or a one-time settlement, we will give benefits to everyone who are attending the bijli panchayat. Make sure you pay bills. I will make sure that all development and renovation work related to electricity in your villages in completed on time. If you face any problem, you can contact me directly and I will try to sort out the problem on the spot.”
