Despite agricultural consumers accounting for more than 50% of all consumer arrears, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited’s (MahaVitaran’s) amnesty scheme has met with a tepid response, netting just Rs305 crore of the Rs2,900 crore principal amount.
Of the MahaVitaran’s around Rs11,000 crore arrears, agricultural consumers account for about Rs6,050 crore, of which Rs 2,900 crore is the principal amount and the rest is interest plus fine. Of the total 32 lakh agricultural consumers, who account for 25% of the state’s power demand, around 30 lakh have defaulted on their bill payments.
The other defaulters include the Mula Pravara Electric Cooperative Society in Ahmednagar district (Rs2,313 crore), public water works (Rs1,540 crore), domestic consumers (Rs727 crore), industrial consumers (Rs275 crore), commercial consumers (Rs182 crore), street lights (Rs290 crore) and power-looms (Rs12 crore).
Under the amnesty scheme called ‘Krishi Sanjeevani’, which was started in April 2011, only Rs305 crore of the Rs2,900 crore principal amount has been received by January. The scheme waives off the fine and the interest components of the dues of agricultural consumers till December 2010 if they pay the principal amount. Till December 2011, only 4 lakh consumers had come forward to clear their dues, adding just Rs251 crore to the distribution utility’s kitty. The scheme was given a three-month extension in December last.
Energy department officials attributed the lack of response to “the mentality of consumers” and added that the utility was taking strict action in case the agricultural consumers were defaulting on the payment of their current bills.
The agricultural consumers are charged in two ways — according to the horse power (HP) of their agricultural pumps and metered tariff. In case of HP-based tariff, a charge of Rs500 per HP is levied on every HP for an agricultural pump up to 3HP, while the rates are Rs700 per HP and Rs900 per HP for pumps up to 5HP and above, respectively.
In case of metered tariff, the consumers are charged according to their consumption, with agricultural pumps up to 3HP being charged 20 paise per unit and those above that capacity being charged 50 paise per unit. Around 14 lakh agricultural consumers have metered connections.
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