Bhubaneswar: The Central Electricity Service Utility (CESU) has snapped power supplies to 13,368 defaulting consumers in the past nine days after it started a drive to collect arrears and disconnect supply lines to defaulters.
According to official sources in the CESU, it has collected Rs 3.8 crore and disconnected power supplies to 1214 consumers, Saturday. Since the beginning of the drive (January 16) a total of13,368 consumers have been disconnected for failure to pay arrears. The total collection of arrears reached Rs 44.27 crore which includes online payment of Rs 3.68 crore.
The CESU authorities have once again appealed to the remaining defaulting consumers to clear their dues at the earliest so that they will not be forced to disconnect the power supply at their premises.
The CESU authorities had divided the power disconnection drive in three phases. People under the scanner in the first phase were identified as deliberate defaulters, who had the potential to make the payment but withheld it intentionally.
In the she second phase, the power utility authorities picked affluent defaulters who regularly paid their income tax but did not clear the electricity dues. The remaining defaulters were picked up in the third phase of the drive.
Squads of total 413 has been employed for the power disconnection task in nine districts – Khurda, Nayagarh, Puri, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Angul, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and a part of Jajpur district.