Berhampur, June 10: The state government offices in southern districts owe Rs 166.46 crore as power dues to the private power distribution company, Southern Electricity Supply Company (Southco).

“The number of defaulting government offices and the state government-controlled organisations stands at 40,454. We have reminded several times to pay the power dues immediately, but in vain,” said Southco assistant vice-chairman Sameer Kumar Swain.

The dues of the agriculture department is Rs 8.17 crore, and the agro industries owe Rs 6.23 crore. Small-scale industries have an arrear of Rs 8.86 crore, lift irrigation points Rs 16.74 crore and public health engineering department Rs 18.37 crore. The government has to pay Southco Rs 53.63 crore towards power bill under the Kutir Jyoti Yojana, which provides subsidised power to consumers under the BPL category.

Southco has 14.04 lakh consumers and the total amount of power dues stands at Rs 728.65 crore. “Such a huge arrear is definitely hampering our mission to provide quality service to the customers,” said Swain.

“To tackle the problem, we have decided to introduce prepaid metering system. We are planning to introduce it in government offices in the first phase and other customers would be covered subsequently in phases,” he said.

The system was launched at Ganjam district headquarters in Chhatrapur on June 3. Southco executive engineer Prabhat Kumar Kar said 930 prepaid meters would be installed in first phase.

“The consumer is required to recharge his meter through token of desired quantum of power as and when required. The meter will have a card with 20-digit number, connected to the server. When the balance amount in meter becomes low, the SMS alert will be sent to the customer for immediate recharge,” he said.

One can recharge the amount online or offline through recharge centres, he said.

A Hyderabad-based company is providing the prepaid meters and monitoring the implementation process.