The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh will now install pre-paid power meters in the official residences of all ministers, legislators and officials in order to check non-payment of dues.
Power Minister Srikant Sharma said here on Tuesday that dues on government departments and official residences of the ministers and VIPs have mounted to a whopping amount of Rs 13,000 crore.
“To realise these dues, we will soon give an option of paying in installments. We have placed an order for one lakh pre-paid power meters and as they arrive, we will start installing them in government offices and residences. I will first install this pre-paid meter in my own residence,” Sharma said. He said in a phased manner, pre-paid meters will be installed in the premises of all domestic and commercial category consumers.
Ministers, legislators and officials are known to be major defaulters when it comes to paying electricity dues. Government offices also rank high on the list of defaulters.
The minister said that dedicated police stations to check power thefts are being set up in all 75 districts of the state and 68 of such police stations have already been set up. “The state government has created 2,050 posts for these police stations while salaries and other costs will be borne by UP Power Corporation,” Sharma said.
Each police stations will have one inspector, five sub-inspectors, two head constables (console operators), nine head constables and nine constables.
The financial woes of the public sector power utility UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) are mounting as there is no let-up in its cash losses despite the 27 per cent hike in tariff from December 2017 to September 2019. The Union Power Ministry’s directive of all states to open a Letter of Credit (LC) for buying power from the independent power generators has also caused additional financial burden on UPPCL. The PSU has to shell out at least Rs 5,000 crore every month to the power exchange from where it buys electricity.
Besides low recovery of revenue from the all categories of power consumers, the high aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses are still very high. Against the standard of 15 per cent line losses set by the ministry, it’s close to 30 per cent in UP. The 15th Finance Commission during its visit to UP has raised the issue with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and expressed concern over the high line losses in UP.