A number of government departments in Poonch district arethe major defaulters in terms of outstanding electricity bills, with aliability of over Rs 75 crore till the quarter ending on December 2018.
Pertinently, the scrutinization of power bills in terms ofdefaulters is conducted in four quarters every year.
As per the details with Greater Kashmir, a large number ofgovernment departments have defaulted on paying their electricity bills.
As per official records accessed by Greater Kashmir, in thelast quarter of 2018, public health engineering department had an outstandingelectricity bill of Rs 49,60,54,478, while the health department had defaultedon Rs 2,67,94,582.
Similarly, the education department had an outstanding of Rs1,75,43,127, whereas the public works department had Rs 1,43,83,450 as unpaidbill.
Some other departments which are mentioned in the majordefaulters list include the police, district industries complex, liftirrigation. Around 45 other departments have liabilities running in severallakhs.
On being contacted, executive engineer, power developmentdepartment, Poonch, Maqbool Naik, said, “A number of departments have nowcleared some portion of their outstanding bills, but the final figure will beout after the present quarter ends on March 31.”
He added, “In last one month, the power developmentdepartment carried out an extensive drive to reach all the departments as wellas domestic power users to clear their pending liabilities, in order to notforce the power development department into disconnecting the connections.”
He further said, “I personally met officers of severalgovernment departments, including police, PHE and health, among other, anddiscussed the issues. A number of departments also cleared some part of theirliabilities during the past few days and we are hopeful that the rest followsuit.”
The executive engineer was hopeful that the present quarterwould have a lower amount with regard to liabilities.