By IANS
Chandigarh : At least 75,550 consumers have lost their power connections in northern Haryana this financial year because they did not pay their electricity bills and also did not avail the amnesty scheme launched by the government two years ago for power defaulters.
The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, one of the power distribution agencies of the state, has announced that it will target over 400,000 defaulters for disconnection in the current financial year.
A spokesman of the Nigam said Monday that the highest number of disconnections – 18,792 – were in Ambala and Panchkula districts followed by 16,269 in Yamunanagar district, 13,898 in Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts, 8,278 in Karnal, 7,621 in Panipat, 5,892 in Rohtak and Jhajjar districts, 1,881 in Jind and 2,919 in Sonepat district.
The agency had to recover Rs.310 million from these non-paying consumers out of which Rs.245 million had been recovered.
In the next few months, 60,000 defaulters will face disconnections in Ambala and Panchkula districts, 63,000 in Yamunanagar, 60,000 in Kurukshetra and Kaithal, 48,000 in Karnal, 25,000 in Panipat, 48,000 in Sonepat, 60,000 in Rohtak and Jhajjar and 36,000 in Jind.
These consumers will not be disconnected only if they pay their dues and future bills regularly, the spokesman said.
There are over 4.1 million electricity connections in the state. Over 1.34 million consumers were identified in March 2005 as non-payers of electricity bills for over a decade.
The Bhupinder Singh Hooda government announced an amnesty scheme under which the defaulters needed to pay their bills for the next 20 months regularly to get a total waiver of nearly Rs.17 billion.
Nearly one million subscribers availed the amnesty scheme while the rest are now facing disconnection.