Thiruvananthapuram: Last week the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) launched a fresh push to recover Rs 1,300 crore in power bill arrears, but data show that the past one year has only made the KSEB’s job tougher. Power bill arrears shot up by more than Rs 90 crore during UDF’s first year compared to a steady drop during the previous five years when the Left held the reins in the state. Unpaid bills of the KSEB stood at Rs 1209.38 crore when the UDF Government took over in May 2011. The latest data released by the KSEB put it at Rs 1300.81 crore, an increase by Rs 91.43 crore.
Power sector sources attributed the abrupt increase to the government and the KSEB going soft on recovery measures, especially in the case of defaulting government departments. (The single biggest individual defaulter being KWA; around Rs 300 crore). In reality, the KSEB had been able to recoup nearly Rs 550 crore in arrears since June 2007 when arrears had stood at a whopping Rs 1842.78 crore, but the graph is on the rise again.
According to former power minister A K Balan, the KSEB was successful in bringing down the arrears between 2006 and 2011 because the LDF Government of the day took a ‘’tough stand.’’ ‘’Our stand was to cut the connections of consumers who did not pay up,’’ he said.
KSEB officials face a genuine problem making government agencies pay up since disconnections are scarcely practicable at Kerala Water Authority (KWA) facilities or hospitals. ‘’We do have a problem. A large sum owed by KWA was written off (in 2008) as part of a one-time settlement. But the KWA alone account for Rs 300 crore now. Of the Rs 568 crore owed by private industries, Rs 170 crore is owed by closed-down units and another Rs 300 crore is tied up in court cases,’’ KSEB member S Venugopal said.
But industries say they are not to blame. ‘’Many of these cases have been pending in courts for the past 10-15 years. Some are pending in the Supreme Court,’’ said A S Satheesh, vice-president, HT/EHT Industrial Electricity Consumers’ Association. ‘’The government and the courts must take steps to speed up the settlement of cases,’’ he said.
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