Electricity supply to 93 schools cut
LUCKNOW: The Noida Power Company Ltd (NPCL) has started snapping electricity connections of government primary and upper primary schools under it in Greater Noida for non-payment of power bills that have been pending for the last seveneight years, people dealing with the issue said.
The move comes amid the state government’s preparations to reopen schools at the upper primary and primary levels after a prolonged closure since March last year due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Set up in 1993, the NPCL is the first and only private company that has an independent licence to sell electricity to consumers in Uttar Pradesh and caters to the Greater Noida region, including rural areas.
“We have already disconnected power supply of 93 of the total 145 government primary schools and upper primary schools under our licensed area in Greater Noida and will feel compelled to snap electricity of other schools also if our dues are not cleared ,” said AK Arora, resident manager.
Director (basic education) Shivendra Singh said, “It is true the department has NPCL’S power dues pending against it and we have requested the government to provide us funds through the budget so that we could clear pending bills to both the NPCL as well as the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL).” “We hope the issue will be resolved very soon,” he added.
NPCL , meanwhile, claimed that they had met a number of officials at various levels in Lucknow as well as Noida and also wrote letters to them, requesting payment of dues before they started disconnecting power as a last resort. “Since 2009, the department of basic education has paid bills amounting to Rs 10 lakh only on three occasions during the period May 2017 and April 2019. But the bills for power consumed by 145 schools accumulated to around Rs 1.50 crore,” Arora explained.
He said all other departments, including irrigation, health and firefighting, were paying their bills regularly, by and large.
A part of the problem of the government schools in rural areas not being able to clear their electricity bills was also attributed to the provision under which the rural local bodies (panchayats) are supposed to pay the bills for such schools.
“Panchayats are often not regular in paying the power bills,” a UPPCL official said. In case of NPCL, however, this provision creates some confusion since there are no village panchayats in Greater Noida where local bodies’ functions are carried out by the Greater Noida Authority.
“The education department has been citing the government order that links power bills of the government primary and upper primary schools in villages with the village panchayats concerned,” Arora said.
“But there are no gram panchayats in Greater Noida, NPCL’S licensed area, and, in such a situation, the fate of payment of our bills hangs in the balance,” he said.
UPPCL director AK Srivastava confirmed there was a government order that had asked village panchayats to pay power bills for schools from the funds available to them under the 14th Finance Commission. “Where there is no village panchayat, the education department is supposed to pay the bill,” he said.
As per the annual revenue requirement proposal that the NPCL filed to the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) last year, the company meets peak demand for around 440 MW (megawatt) of electricity in its licensed area (Greater Noida) with 60% of the load being industrial alone followed by the multi-storey apartments comprising 150 societies.