Noida: 40K defaulters set to lose power

After a series of reliefs following the Covid-19 outbreak in Gautam Budh Nagar district, the power distribution company (discom) in Noida – Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) – has resumed disconnecting supply to defaulters

After a series of reliefs following the Covid-19 outbreak in Gautam Budh Nagar district, the power distribution company (discom) in Noida – Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) – has resumed disconnecting supply to defaulters. From Sunday, it began taking action against nearly 40,000 consumers who owed it a total of ₹200 crore.

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In May, the PVVNL had decided to suspend the drive after state energy minister Shrikant Sharma intervened and told them to put it off till the Covid crisis had subsided.

PVVNL (Noida) chief engineer Virendra Nath Singh said that the dues had been pending since the last one year. “We had already issued several notices to these consumers and yet they have not made any payment. Out of these 40,000 defaulters, over 1,500 have outstanding bills ranging between ₹1 lakh and ₹20 lakh each. Similarly, we have 12,000 others who have not cleared their dues ranging from ₹50,000 to ₹99,000, while the rest owe us between ₹10,000 and ₹49,000,” he said.

Singh said that supply to nearly 500 consumers had been disconnected since Sunday. “Since we began the process, over 300 defaulters have cleared their dues amounting to nearly ₹35 lakh so far,” he said.

PVVNL has around 325,000 consumers in Gautam Budh Nagar district, which gives it ₹300 crore every month. “Earlier, we began a disconnection drive in December. On instruction from the energy minister, we suspended it in May. If we keep providing power to these defaulters, the discom will be under heavy loss,” he said.

The chief engineer further said that the discom will accept only offline applications for converting single-point electricity connections in high-rises to multi-point connections. “We got six complaints that the software we deployed to digitise application process was faulty. It resulted in debiting the amount without processing the application properly. We’ve decided to go on with offline applications till the software is fixed,” he said.