Patna, Feb. 3: The special drive launched by the Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) to check electricity theft and realise arrears is paying dividends in crores.

The drive has resulted in collection of dues to the tune of Rs 26 crore in the past two months. Pesu realised Rs 12 crore and Rs 14 crore in December and January respectively on account of arrears.

The power body however is not very elated over the recovery.

“We have collected Rs 14 crore on account of arrears which is around Rs 10 crore less than our target. The reason for this is that we have outsourced the billing and its distribution to new agency and also the severe cold condition last month slackened the recovery momentum,” Pesu general manager S.K.P. Singh told The Telegraph.

He said that Pesu has overall collected Rs 50.5 crore revenue in December and Rs 44.3 crore in January.

“The recovery figures could have been much better than Rs 44.30 crore that Pesu realised in January but now we will focus again on the drive and will try to achieve the target of Rs 55 crore this month,” Singh added.

Pesu launched the drive under the Bihar State Electricity Board’s (BSEB) initiative to start a three-month special campaign to realize arrears from consumers.

Consumers of all seven area boards altogether owe Rs 7,000 crore to the BSEB, of which around Rs 3,000 crore is due against various government departments.

PESU has been conducting raids, disconnecting power lines besides lodging criminal cases against consumers who owe more than Rs 180 crore as electricity dues, on a day-to-day basis to check electricity theft and realize arrears.

Under this drive, an officer of assistant engineer rank raids the premises of those who owe more than Rs 10,000 as electricity dues and disconnects the lines if the dues are not cleared immediately.

Out of Rs 550 crore dues of Pesu, the state government owes a bill to the tune of Rs 225 to Rs 250 crore besides Rs 150 crore which have already been disconnected on account of non-payment by big consumers, including industrialists who have filed cases against the move.

Out of a total of Rs 150 crore dues, bills to the tune of Rs 50 crore are disputed and hence the total revenue which can be realised comes to Rs 100 crore, Singh said.