Journalism of Courage
The MAHARASHTRA State Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited (MSEDCL) has launched an initiative to recover overdue bills, with its employees disconnecting the power supply of consumers who haven’t paid their bills in time. In the last 25 days, the power supply of a whopping 40,000 households in the district has been disconnected. Furious consumers have claimed that the corporation is cutting off their power supply without issuing a notice, or even when the pending amount is paltry.
The MSEDCL officials, on the other hand, said the move was aimed at reducing the pendency of bills. Officials claimed they had been ordered by the authorities to increase the revenue of the power utility body by recovering the dues, and also to send out a strong message to consumers: if they wanted to avoid such a situation, they should proactively pay their bills.
Last week, MSEDCL’s Regional Director Sanjay Taksande had issued strict instructions to zonal officials, asking them to leave no stone unturned in collecting pending bill amounts, and indicating that their annual performance will be based on the recovery of dues.
“We need to send out a strong signal… that if a consumer wants to avoid the embarrassment of a power cut, then he has to proactively pay the bill. Collection of dues is a financial need for the MSEDCL and if the officers won’t perform on this front, they will face action,” said Taksande.
On complaints about the power supply being disconnected over paltry amounts, senior MSEDCL officials said the step was being taken irrespective of the pending amount.
The “proactive drive” has, understandably, not gone down well with consumers. They alleged that the MSEDCL was disconnecting their power supply, and in some cases, uninstalling electricity metres, without giving a prior notice that is compulsory.
Tushar Lakare, a resident of Poorva Srushti Apartment on Sinhagad Road, complained that his family had to spend Friday night and the whole of Saturday without any power supply, due to the “incomprehensible” action by the corporation.
He claimed that MSEDCL officials had disconnected the power supply over a pending amount of Rs 920, without giving either a written or a verbal notice first.
“On Friday evening, when the power went off, we thought it was a normal interruption. Later, we noticed that other apartments in the building had power and checked downstairs, only to realise that our meter was missing. We called the MSEDCL helpline, and they asked us to clear the bill, as well as pay reconnection charges. We did that within minutes and reached the sub-divisional office, requesting them to restore the power connection. It’s been 24 hours since we did that… but officials are yet to restore the power supply. I have called at least 20 times but there has been no response. I have a young daughter and an elderly mother. It is terrible as we are living without electricity in this heat,” said Lakare.
Sushila Raje Bhosale, a housewife from Kothrud, claimed that the power supply to her house was disconnected in spite of the fact that she had paid the bill.
“I had received a Rs 800 bill and I had paid it last week using PayTM. It seems the bill did not get updated in the MSEDCL system and hence they assumed it wasn’t paid and disconnected the supply… I paid the bill again in cash just to get the supply restored at the soonest, but they are yet to do it,” said Raje, a resident of Shakuntala Society.
Anish Hakhu (21), a student who lives in the Whispering Wind Housing Society on Baner-Pashan Link Road, complained that it took too long to restore the power supply. “They took one full day to restore the supply. We spent the entire night without any electricity. We were told that since they are disconnecting the connections of many households, and they have a very small team, it is taking time to restore the power supply,” said Hakhu.
