Dispute Settlement Authority launched

PATIALA, July 9: Chairman of the Punjab State Electricity Board Bikramjit Singh inaugurated the office of newly constituted Dispute Settlement Authority (DSA) at Chhoti Baradari here. While addressing the gathering, he advised them to be fair and give justice both to the board as well as to the affected consumers while settling disputes.

Habitual offenders should be sternly punished but innocent consumers should not be harassed, he said. He also advised the DSA to give a patient hearing to aggrieved consumers who were free to engage lawyers to put their cases before the authority. He made it clear that there should be no fear on the part of affected industrial consumers that due opportunity would not be given to them to put forth their view point before this authority. Rather, this authority would pass spoken orders after hearing the view point of the board’s checking agencies as well as the consumers. As per the tentative figures available with DSA, more than 150 dispute cases above Rs 2 lakh, involving revenue of Rs 36 crore, are pending with various chief engineers.

Singh appealed to the affected consumers to refer their disputes to this authority and assured them that full justice would be meted out by the authority which has been centralised with a view to bring about rationalisation in the settlement of such disputes, Chief Engineer DSA R.N. Gupta, while welcoming the chief guest assured the board that the DSA would make all efforts to expedite the settlement of disputes speedily.