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Unpaid power bills of several crores causing huge issues for Tangedco
Posted on: 15/Apr/2019 10:50:10 AM
Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation or Tangedco founded in the year 2010 and owned by the government is now grabbing the headlines. It is known that this Tangedco has been suffering from heavy financial losses and the latest news is Tangedco is now facing resource crunch because of unpaid power bills of hundreds of crores by various government agencies.
It must be noted that Tangedco, that is TN state electricity utility, had suffered heavy losses for the audited financial year of 2017-18 and the amount is Rs 7760 crores. The important piece of information is TWAD, many municipalities, local administration department and other departments have kept huge amount of electricity bills unpaid and thereby causing huge financial issues for Tangedco.
The officials belonging to Tangedco expressed their thoughts and spoke about how the electricity utility has been finding it tough because of the large over dues by the various departments belonging to the government. Hence amount could not be paid for many private power generators and for undertaking other developmental works. It was pointed out by a senior Tangedco official that the overdue of current consumption or CC charges from TWAD board and from other local bodies were more than Rs 1000 crores. As per the official it is clear that the electricity officials have been asked to approach the State Finance Corporation to collect outstanding dues from the local bodies.
Recently a review meeting took place at the headquarters it was decided not to entertain any new service connections to these government departments till pending dues were paid. It has been revealed that installation of pre paid meters for the local body and for the government service were discussed at the meeting and the idea was dropped as TWAD and local bodies were involved.
The point is TWAD officials have been cooperative to the requests to clear the pending amount. It is now said that the TWAD has promised to expedite the clearance of due amount. It is important to mention that the water charges were revised in 2018 and it has increased the revenue by as much as 120 percent. In the year 2002, the charges were revised as it was very low and this had resulted in the accumulation of the electricity dues of several crores now.
The important information that has come out now is Tangedco has got plans to adopt Odisha model of collecting electricity dues from the state treasury instead of every government agency.
