Stop harassing Tangedco consumers in name of Aadhaar linking: OPS

CHENNAI: Former chief minister and ousted AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam on Saturday condemned the Tamil Nadu government for forcing the Tangedco consumers, without giving a proper explanation, to link their Aadhaar with the service connection number to pay their electricity bills. He urged the government to give six months’ time to the public to link the Aadhaar number to their service and demanded the government to stop “harassing” the consumers for the same.

"DMK leader, MK Stalin, criticised the Union government when it initiated linking of Aadhaar with consumers’ gas connection number. Now, his government is doing the same without giving adequate time. It exposes the double standard of the DMK party," said OPS in a statement.

The exercise of linking Aadhaar started 10 days ago. Now, the authorities are not allowing the consumers, who are yet to link their consumer number with Aadhaar, to pay the bills. The DMK government’s such approach is “unjustifiable”, he said.

He lashed out at the DMK government for not allowing the consumers to pay the EB bills without the Aadhar update.

Many consumers are facing problems as the electricity connection remained in the name of their family elders, who were no more. They were facing problems. Meanwhile, the people living in rented portions were facing problems as the house owners were not allowing the former to link the EB connection with their Aadhaar.

Tangedco had also failed to explain the reasons behind the exercise of linking the Aadhaar with their consumer number to take them into confidence. There were rumours doing the rounds that the government would cut subsidies to persons having more than one connection. Such a move would have an impact on the middle and lower middle class, particularly people living in rented houses, he said.

He appealed to the Chief Minister to give special attention to this issue and clarify the reason for taking up the exercise of linking Aadhaar with consumer numbers. He also urged the Chief Minister to give six months’ time for the Tangedco consumers to link with Aadhaar with their consumer number.