Deduct dues from salary of erring govt staff: HERC

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 3

The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) has suggested a way out to discoms to recover outstanding power bills from defaulting government employees: deduct the pending amount from their salaries.

The outstanding amount of the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran (DHBVN) is Rs 4,132. 92 crore.

The other suggestion by the HERC is to introduce the franchisee system for the retail power supply.

Expressing concern at the huge receivables (amount billed to power consumers but not collected), the advisory sent by the HERC Director (Tariff) to the managing directors of the discoms asserted that this distorted the cash flows of the distribution companies. “It also led to funding of revenue gap by way of expensive short-term borrowings for which it put additional interest burden on the distribution companies,” it said.

The total net outstanding power bills of the discoms are pegged at Rs 4,132.92 crore — Rs 1,714.9 crore for the UHBVN and Rs 2,418.02 crore for the DHBVN. However, the gross power tariff bill liability of the people towards the discoms is estimated at Rs 8,688.13 crore — Rs 3,357.58 crore for the UHBVN and Rs 5,330.55 crore for the DHBVN.

“The commission is of the firm opinion the financial health of the discoms is incumbent upon accurate metering of the power supplied to consumers, proper billing, and prompt collection of dues on account of the sale of power,” the advisory added.