Over 1 cr consumers have never paid bill; UPPCL says together they owe ₹40K cr

Brajendra K Parashar

LUCKNOW: Of around three crore electricity consumers in Uttar Pradesh, more than one crore has never ever paid their bills since April 2017 or even prior to that, according to an official letter shot off by the UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) to all the five power distribution companies (discoms) under it.

These ‘never paid consumers’, a new term coined for them by the UPPCL, have a whopping close to Rs 40,000 crore dues pending against them even as the UPPCL, a governmentowned distribution utility, finds itself in a deep financial crisis prompting the top management to focus on such consumers for the first time.

“This situation cannot be allowed to go on anymore. People have to pay their electricity bills regularly,” UPPCL chairman M Devraj said.

“This is why we are making regular and separate monitoring of the never paid consumers every day and have also directed discoms to recover pending dues from them or snap their power connections on a regular basis,” he added.

UPPCL managing director Pankaj Kumar has written a letter to all the discoms indicating the discom-wise number of ‘never paid’ consumers as well as dues pending against them asking discoms MDs to ensure action against 100% consumers who have never paid their bills since April 1, 2017 or before that.

He has asked discoms to see to it that every lineman and similar other staff necessarily snapped at least five power connections owned by ‘never paid consumers’ everyday if the bills were not cleared.

The corporation, as per the letter dated April 3, has identified 1,070,4757 consumers who have never bothered to pay their power bills issued to them since April 1, 2017 or before. The total amount of arrears they owe to the department has been calculated to be as high as Rs 39,629.78 crore, the amount that is said to be bigger than the total annual budget size of several small states and Union Territories. The largest number of ‘never paid consumers’ has been identified in the Varanasi (PUVVNL) discom where as many as 42,67,704 consumers have never paid their bills worth total Rs 16,374.26 crore.

With 33,19,095 ‘never paid’ consumers and Rs 7,826.71 crore dues against them, the Lucknow (MVVNL) come on the second number in terms of number defaulters and third in terms of dues amount followed by the Agra (DVVNL) discoms which has the third highest number of unpaid consumers at 21,33,364 and the second highest amount of dues, that, is, Rs10,967.11 crore.

The Meerut (PVVNL) has the fourth highest number of 9,81,952 ‘never paid’ consumers who have bills of Rs 4,453.75 crore pending against them. There are 2,642 ‘never paid’ consumers owing Rs 7.95 crore dues in the Kanpur Electricity Supply Company (KESCo), the discom that caters to the Kanpur city only.

People aware of the issue said that majority of ‘never paid’ consumers were ones who were given free electricity connections under the Centre’s Saubhagya scheme launched nationally in September 2017.

“The government did provide free metered connections to around one crore rural household under the Saubhagya but most of these consumers are not paying their bills either because they do not have the required paying capacity or because they are not getting bills or getting inflated bills often prepared by a rough estimate without anyone actually going to read meters on spot and issue the bills accordingly on the actual reading basis,” they pointed out.

UPPCL MD Pankaj Kumar said, “We have not made any discrimination in Saubhagya and non-Saubhagya consumers while preparing the lists of ‘never paid’ consumers”. “This is for discoms to make analysis in this regard. Our concern is the recovery of all the pending dues from all consumers who never paid bill,” he added.

This situation cannot be allowed to go on anymore. People have to pay their electricity bills regularly.

M DEVRAJ, UPPCL chairman