Panchayats to pay power bills of govt schools in rural areas

Balwant Garg

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Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 5

In the absence of allotment of funds for payment of electricity bills in government schools, the Director School Education Department on Thursday advised all district education officers (DEO) and school heads to approach panchayats in the rural areas for payment of electricity bills. In a message, director Paramjit Singh suggested the DEOs and school heads to transfer the electricity connections in the name of village panchayats who agree to pay these bills.

Many panchayats are willing to foot the bill and have given their nod to the transfer of electricity connections in their name, said the director.

However, many panchayats in the area were not able to pay the electricity bills of tubewell connections in the village, how we can take burden of schools?

The director said there is no provision of separate funds for the payment of electricity bills in the schools. For non-payment of bills, the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) has snapped the power supply to many schools in the area.

Some time back, the PSPCL had conveyed all its officials at district level not to snap the power supply of government schools in their areas for non-payment of bills.

The office of director, distribution, PSPCL had issued these instructions after Director, school education department informed the chairman PSPCL about a 2-year-old decision of the state government according to which the electricity bills of the schools in the state shall be paid by the state finance department.

As per this mode, principal secretary shall release lump sum amount on every quarter directly to PSPCL on the basis of last -years average bills of power consumption in all government schools in the state. The finance department will pay the bills out of budgetary allocations of the school education department.

The school education department had earlier relied upon this decision after a writ petition in the High Court by the panchayat of some village.

In this writ petition, the panchayat members had claimed that they were being forced to pay the electricity bill of a school in the village. After the panchayat was unable to pay the bills, the power supply to the school was disconnected, claimed the panchayat members.

In this writ petition, the High Court had questioned the state government under what provisions the panchayats were being asked to pay the electricity bills of government schools.

In its reply in the High Court, the state government had claimed that in case of default or delay in payment in case of some schools, the panchayats or other members of civil society paid the bills to avoid disconnection of power supply in the schools but there was no such policy to pay these bills by the panchaytas.

After this writ petition, the chief secretary in a meeting on October 15, 2015 had given a policy of payment of electricity bills by the finance department. But in the last about two years while the power supply of many schools was disconnected due to non-payment of bills, the new policy was not started, said a senior functionary in education department.