Purnea, Nov. 21: The district office of Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) has threatened to snap connectivity of its consumers with dues over Rs 10,000 if they don’t pay their outstanding bills within 15 days.
The office has started issuing notices to the consumers, giving them a fortnight’s time to clear the dues or else face action.
“If the bill is not paid within the stipulated period, elect-ricity supply will be discon nected before any legal action is taken,” the notice stated.
According to sources, consumers across the district have to clear dues of around Rs 73 crore to BSEB.
Of this, Rs 20 crore has to be paid by the state government alone. The civic body’s dues are around Rs 4 crore.
BSEB executive engineer R.P. Sharma, told The Telegraph: “For the benefit of consumers, we upload the electricity bill of a month on our website, www.bsebbills.org, by the middle of the next month.
Besides, consumers will not have to wait for electricity bills any longer. They can deposit their dues at any branch of Canara Bank.”
He added: “We have prepared a list of consumers with dues over Rs 10,000 to recover the outstanding bills. We are sending notices to them through the bills.”
Sharma said the department has tied up with Sahaj Vashudha Kendra, an agency that has branches at every panchayat of the district. Rural consumers could reap the benefits of the kendras and they can pay their bills or collect their bills from the units. The kendras, in return, will get commissions.”
Vijay Kumar Sreevastava, owner of Parmila Indane Distributer, expressed concern, saying that serving notices alone would not solve the problem.
He added: “Consumers unwilling to pay their dues to BSEB must be counselled that the state government purchases electricity and sell it at a lower rate than it had purchased.”
Sreevastava said the 15-day period was not sufficient and they should be given more time. He added: “There is another group of consumers who wait till legal actions are taken. For such consumers, counselling as well as penal action should be taken if the electricity department wants to improve the billing collection.”
