Government departments give Tangedco Rs 1,500 cr shock

Chennai

Following the announcement of the lockdown to contain the spread of the COVID-19 on March 24, the utility has recorded a sharp fall in the revenue by 50 per cent. With the drop in energy consumption by the high-tension industries and commercial consumers, the revenue collection from the current consumption charges also went down drastically, affecting the financial condition of already debt-ridden utility.

Amid fall in revenue collection, various government departments including Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board figure in the top of defaulters’ list, with the pending dues running to Rs 900 crore. The local bodies have the second-highest outstanding dues among the government agencies with a total arrear of Rs 500 crore. Among the local bodies, the village panchayats’ dues alone come to Rs 320 crore.

The large overdue by government departments has made it difficult for the electricity utility to pay the private power generators and undertaking of other development works, officials said.

A senior Tangedco official said that after vigorous follow up by the utility, TWAD has started paying their HT bills through an online payment mode. “We have requested the TWAD Board to opt for the online payment of their HT bills. Earlier, the monthly bills of the TWAD would go to the field superintendent engineers office in the districts. With the implementation of the automatic meter reading for the HT services, the auto-generated bills could be accessed by the TWAD Board headquarters and they could mobilise funds to pay the bills. Even then they have huge accumulated pending bills,” the official said.

S Neelankanta Pillai, retired executive engineer of Tangedco and founder of Citizen’s Contribution in Democracy wondered how could the utility function with huge accumulated pending dues from government departments. “Tangedco should collect the pending dues with the applicable interest of 1.5 per cent per month from the government departments as per the norms. For Rs 1,600 crore, if the dues were pending for over a year, the interest alone would be running into about Rs 280 crore. However, the government departments would not pay the interest,” he said.


Power corporation gets notice over billing row
Admitting a plea challenging the methodology adopted by Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) to calculate power consumption charges during lockdown period, the Madras High Court has directed the government to file its counter by June 22.

A division bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice Krishnan Ramasamy sought the explanation following a plea moved by ML Ravi of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi.

He had submitted that power consumption charges collected on a bi-monthly basis are calculated based on different slabs. The first 100 units are provided subsidy, and thereafter the cost per unit increases – Rs 3.50 per unit for 101 to 200 units, Rs 4.60 for units between 201 to 500, and Rs 6.60 for units consumed above 500.

But as Tangedco field staff could not record readings due to the lockdown, consumers were asked to pay the same charges paid in the previous billing cycle and get the amount adjusted when the readings get recorded in May or June. But contrary to expectations, Tangedco divided the number of units recorded in May and June ‘equally’ into two, resulting in customers being forced to shell out more money, he said.

Citing his own bill, the petitioner submitted that before the lockdown he had consumed 480 units and paid Rs 1,070. As per directions, the same amount was paid the following cycle. When the readings were recorded, it was found that he had consumed 1,240 units. But Tangedco divided them into two and considered him to have consumed 620 units each during the last two billing cycles.

Such equal division meant that he had crossed the ‘above 500 units’ slab during both the billing cycles. So, he was charged Rs 2,572 per billing while Tangedco should have ideally charged him only for 480 units during the first billing cycle (when readings were not recorded) and 760 units in the next.

If such division had been done, his bill would have come under the ‘below 500 units’ slab at least for one billing cycle, saving an additional payment of Rs 578, the plea said.