1.07 lakh never pay for their power

Shocking as it may sound, over 1.07 lakh consumers across sections from the districts of Nanded, Hingoli and Parbhani have not paid their bills ever since installing electricity connections from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MahaVitaran).

The arrears of such consumers in the three districts, which form part of the Nanded zone, totals around Rs302.45 crore. The MahaVitaran has a total of 8.70 lakh consumers in the three districts.

The Nanded zone has over 8.68 lakh consumers , of which 5.41 lakh erred on bill payments, with accumulated arrears of Rs1,110 crore. Of the 5.41 lakh defaulters, 35,983 residential, commercial and industrial consumers have not paid up since the installation date and account for arrears to the tune of Rs16.58 crore. The number of agricultural consumers defaulting on their bills is 69,398 with arrears running up to Rs263.14 crore. Further, 2,343 consumers from other categories have defaulted to the tune of Rs22.72 crore.

Of the 1,311 villages in the zone, 1,105 villages pay less than 10% of their electricity bills.

In Hingoli and Parbhani, the per unit realisation for agricultural consumers has been Rs0.02 as compared to the billing of Rs0.64 and Rs0.62 per unit respectively. In Nanded, the billing per unit is Rs0.59 per unit but the recovery per unit is Rs0.04.

The average cost of supply for MahaVitaran is Rs5.19 per unit, while it incurs around Rs3.60 per unit as power purchase cost. However, the recovery from the districts of Nanded, Parbhani and Hingoli is less than Re1 per unit and there are a number of branch offices in areas like Pathri, Sailu, Bamani, where the MahaVitaran’s recovery is less than the amount spent on salaries of employees.

While Parbhani has distribution and commercial losses of 78%, the percentage of these losses for Hingoli and Nanded are 75% and 51% respectively.