BHUBANESWAR: Response to the recently launched one-time settlement (OTS) scheme for waiver of long outstanding dues of consumers in Wesco, Nesco and Southco areas has been encouraging. Sources in the Reliance Infrastructure Limited (RIL) said 46,727 consumers in Nesco area have availed of the scheme with a recovery of ` 27.8 crore after the settlement. While 30,546 defaulters of Wesco area opted for settlement of their arrears, 30,264 consumers of Southco availed of the scheme. The company collected arrear dues to the tune of ` 17 crore in Wesco and ` 18 crore in Southco. As on March 31, 2005, the arrears, excluding government consumers in the books of Wesco, Nesco and Southco are to the tune of ` 619 crore, ` 416 crore and ` 249 crore respectively. In all its tariff orders, the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has been insisting on collection of arrears by the distribution companies (Distcoms) to meet their repayment obligations and power purchase bills. The OERC carried out a receivables audit by deploying around 60 chartered and cost accountant firms at division levels to ascertain the exact amount of arrears that could be collected. The audit firms reported that only 30 per cent of the arrear dues could be recovered in Wesco, 30.84 per cent in Nesco and 29.78 per cent in Southco. The receivable audit further detected that 60.85 per cent of the consumers having outstanding arrears are non-existent (ghost consumers), while power has permanently been disconnected to nearly 70 per cent of the defaulters. As the billing databases were not standardized prior to privatisation, consumers who had ceased to exist continue to figure in the arrear list. It is suspected that ghost consumers were just added to make the billing percentage look healthy, the sources said.
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