Over 12K consumers in Noida to lose power connections over pending bills

NOIDA: Irked by the lacklustre response shown by consumers towards payment of pending bills despite schemes and rebates offered, power distribution company the Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) has decided to disconnect power lines of over 12,000 defaulting consumers who owe the discom a total of ₹10 crore.

Officials said these consumers have not deposited any amount against their electricity bills in the last two years, officials said.

They added that these 12,000 consumers include both individual as well as commercial consumers.

Last year, the electricity distribution company had started a disconnection drive but had called off its drive against another 65,000 consumers in the first week of December last year for not clearing their outstanding power dues of ₹3.25 crore, upon instructions by Uttar Pradesh’s state energy minister Shrikant Sharma.

Virendra Nath Singh, the chief engineer of the Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited said that these 12,000 defaulter consumers have been identified by the discom’s portal.

“We had sent mandatory notices to them before launching the crackdown against them. But all our requests for clearing outstanding dues fell on deaf ears. As a result, we started pulling plugs from Wednesday and within three weeks, we’ll disconnect power lines of all those 12,000 major defaulters,” he said.

He further said that after the disconnection drive, recovery penalties will be issued against these defaulters to ensure recovery through the legal route.

“The PVVNL had been offering many schemes like easy instalments and one-time settlement to them so that defaulters can clear their outstanding bills easily,” he said

“We had also decided to waive off the interest on their outstanding bills but even then, they didn’t pay any attention. Finally, we had no option other than to pull the plug permanently and initiate legal action against them,” the chief engineer further added.

The power distribution company has 3.25 lakh consumers in Gautam Budh Nagar district and the total outstanding dues of these consumers stand at over ₹25 crore.

We had sent notices to them but all our requests for clearing dues fell on deaf ears. In 3 weeks, we will disconnect power supply to all 12,000 major defaulters. VIRENDRA NATH SINGH, PVVNL chief engineer