Team Herald
PONDA: Congress has demanded that the State government waive off the charges on exorbitant electricity bills of three months lockdown period on the lines of Kerala and Delhi governments and set an ideal example to give some relaxation to the suffering people on account of COVID pandemic.
On Tuesday, the party members protested against the government for issuing exorbitant electricity bills by burning an electricity bill in front of the Electricity Department office, here.
Goa Pradesh Congress Committee Vice President Sankalp Amonkar along with Goa Youth President Varad Mardolkar, Ponda Block President Arun Gudekar, Priol Block President Hemanth Naik, Senior Party leader Ashok Naik, Hemanth Samantha and party workers of Ponda Taluka grilled the Executive Engineer at Curti Sub Division for issuing exorbitant electricity bills for the past 84 days and brought to light the arrogant behaviour of electricity employees while attending to complaints of the consumers.
Police were present to maintain law and order.
Earlier, Executive Engineer Deepak Naik refused to come out of the office premises citing social distancing norm and standing behind a grill door asked them to put forth their grievances.
However, Congressman irked over his attitude, asked to open the grill door so that face to face discussion can be held.
After opening the door, Amonkar brought to his notice that the people in Goa received 84 days bills without proper bifurcation of monthly bills and thus the locals who used to get Rs 400 to Rs 500 monthly bills now have received 84 days bills to the tunes of Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000. On account, the meter readers did not gave monthly bills but when issued after three months they were exorbitant for the poor to pay and without proper bifurcation of each months.
Amonkar informed, “Due to wrong calculations the customers have received bills to the tune of three to four fold more.”
He demanded that the bills charges should be waived off as the government is responsible for the lockdown. The people were at home jobless and now have no money to clear the bills.
“Many people are jobless and have no salaries while some are removed from the jobs and are unemployed. How can they clear these hefty bills when they are struggling to feed their families. However, these people co-operated with the government during the lockdown period. Since the government enforced the lockdown it is the State’s responsibility to waive off these bills charges.
Youth Congress President Adv Mardolkar said, “Why the consumers should suffer for the mistake of meter readers. Further, the government employees are not cooperative, but behave arrogantly with the people coming with the complaints. The department should attend to the grievances of poor customers and the arrogant behaviour of the staff should be controlled.”
