Opposition parties including the BJP and Congress have threatened a strike in Odisha if the state’s biggest power distribution company carries out its plan to disconnect power supply to consumers in 11000-odd villages over pending dues.
Central Electricity Supply Undertaking’s (CESU) CEO, Arun Bothra, said electricity supply to over 7 lakh consumers in 11397 villages will be discontinued from January 16 due to deliberate default in bill payment.
“Domestic consumers of CESU owe ₹1251 crore while commercial consumers need to pay another ₹243 crore. So far, around 1.10 lakh consumers have cleared their dues amounting to ₹21 crore,” said Bothra, adding that consumers with power arrears up to ₹25,000 have to pay at least 30 percent of the pending bill and the balance in three installments. Those with arrears up to ₹50,000 and more, can clear the outstanding in four to six installments, he said.
Congress called the decision to snap power supply autocratic and questioned why it targeted only poor people when “thousands of crores” in electricity dues were pending against several industries.
“Lakhs of students would write their matriculation and higher secondary examination in about a month and the power disconnection would hugely inconvenience them. The party will storm streets if CESU goes ahead with mass power disconnection drive against consumers who are unable to pay the bills,” said Congress MLA Suresh Routray.
{{/usCountry}}“Lakhs of students would write their matriculation and higher secondary examination in about a month and the power disconnection would hugely inconvenience them. The party will storm streets if CESU goes ahead with mass power disconnection drive against consumers who are unable to pay the bills,” said Congress MLA Suresh Routray.
{{/usCountry}}BJP state general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan said threatening the poor consumers with a deadline was undemocratic.
“May be Tata Power Co Ltd. has set up terms and conditions that it will take over the management only after all the pending bills are cleared. I think there is some internal agreement between the two,” he said.
A CESU official, however, said the power utility has no intention of disconnecting power but it was running out of options, if the default on payment for power continued.
CESU, with a consumer base of over 27 lakh, is spread over 9 districts and is run by Odisha government since last 14 years after its initial phase of privatisation came a cropper. Last month, Tata Power Company Limited announced that it has won a bid for distribution and retail supply in five electrical circles of CESU for an initial period of 25 years.