The consumers made a bonfire of copies of the power bills and are now bracing up for an agitation as they claimed huge discrepancies in the meter reading with some of the beleaguered consumers receiving bills as high as Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 for a six month period.
They demanded dismissals of the office in-charge of raising the bills for remiss of duty.
The Raia power consumers along with Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco, Raia Sarpanch Isidore Rodrigues, panch members told Superintending engineer Laxmikant Kolvalkar that it is wrong to penalise the consumers for omissions of the department and officers entrusted with the work of preparing bills.
Panch member Xavier Fernandes demanded that the meter reading taken at the time of delivery of the last bill in the month of January 2015 be taken as the cut out meter reading for the next month bill. He demanded that the department should not penalise the consumers by disconnecting the supply if there’s a delay in the payment of the bills.
The Curtorim MLA said he is totally supporting the power consumers on the demand for waiver of the power bills.
After giving a patient hearing to the power consumers, engineer, Kolvalkar said the department can only give the power consumers instalment facility for payment of the huge bills, besides rectification of the faulty billing. Though he has promised the people to forward their memorandum to the higher up for waiver, Kolvalkar told the media that there’s no question of any waiver.
Before leaving the Power House, the agitated consumers set afire copies of the power bills and vowed to continue their agitation till justice is done to them by the government.
