Consumers faking family division to avail zero bill facility: PSPCL staffers

Mahesh Sharma

Malerkotla, June 14

The greed for getting ‘zero power bill’, having prompted members of joint families to depose that they were living separately in the same house, have been dared by constituents of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL).

Thousands of couples, father and son duos, widow mother and unmarried sons of this region of Malwa are among those applicants who are living together but had submitted false affidavits claiming that they had started living separately in the same house following launch of Aam Aadmi Party’s scheme providing 300 units of free power to every domestic consumer.

An appeal was made by office-bearers and activists of various employees’ outfits of the PSPCL following a report submitted by the Punjab Development Commission regarding the need to reduce expenses and enhance income sources during a meeting held recently under chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

Employees of the PSPCL led by president, Technical Services Union, Ashu Bains, regretted that the government’s gesture to provide free power for small consumers had been exploited by larger domestic consumers allegedly by faking division of their homes. “Instead of lowering consumption by avoiding wastage, families submitted false agreements regarding division of their families and setting up defunct kitchens to substantiate their claims,” said Bains claiming that more than 3 lakh new connections, mostly double connections had been availed with intent to come under the category of domestic consumers consuming less than 300 units per month.

Apprehending that the trend would affect the viability of functioning of the PSPCL, the activists urged the consumers to respect ethics and act according to their conscience by consuming power through the parent meter only.

Observations revealed that the number of domestic consumers was 74,42,330 before the launch of the captioned scheme and had risen to 77,46, 972 last year. Nearly 90 per cent of the domestic power consumers in the state were issued zero bills during the last billing cycle before the recent Lok Sabha election.

The alleged window dressing done by such a huge number has also resulted in unauthorised increase of load on transformers and conductors keeping the technical staff of the PSPCL on toes handling overloading situations.

Over 3 lakh new connections

“Instead of lowering consumption by avoiding wastage, families submitted false agreements regarding division of their families and setting up defunct kitchens to substantiate their claims,” said Ashu Bains, president, Technical Services Union, claiming that over 3 lakh new connections had been availed intent to come under the category of consumers consuming less than 300 units per month.