MSEDCL collects ₹100 crore in two weeks with 4,922 disconnections in Pune circle

Pune: Consumers have started responding to the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL), paying more than ₹113 crore in outstanding dues in the last two weeks.

MSEDCL had threatened to discontinue power supply and has done so for 4,922 consumers.

In the Pune circle, there are 399,128 consumers who haven’t paid their electricity bills over the last 10 months.

A total of 33,187,000 industrial and commercial consumers are defaulters and the pending amount is ₹320.36 crore.

Till date, 55,000 residential consumers paid a total of ₹81.70 lakh in outstanding bills in one week’s time.

Commercial consumers have paid ₹51.54 crore (22,818 consumers) and industrial consumers (2,750 consumers) also paid ₹24.29 crore.

Sachin Talewar, chief engineer, MSEDCL, Pune circle, said, “We have started taking action against defaulters and especially those consumers who haven’t paid their electricity bills from April 2020. However, consumers are paying their outstandings after our appeal.”

“We had also given them the option to pay bills in 12- month instalments,” he said.

According to MSEDCL officials, 24,746 consumers in Haveli, Mulshi, Velhe, Ambegaon, Junnar, Maval and Khed talukas have paid total ₹1.52 crore.

Vivek Velankar, civic activist, said, “Due to political interference in the electricity bill issue, people were anticipating that the bill amount will be waived during the pandemic, but that was not the case. Now the outstanding amount is high and so MSEDCL has started taking action against defaulters. Consumers are paying outstanding amounts to MSEDCL. Now, MSEDCL should cooperate and give defaulters time to pay bills in instalments.”