Indore: Power supply to DRO snapped, action on others soon
Indore: In a major crackdown on electricity bill defaulters, Western Region Power Distribution Company (Discom) snapped power connection to deputy registrar’s office (DRO) in Shopping Complex area on Thursday.
A team of Vijay Nagar based zone office of Discom reached the Shopping Complex in morning and disconnected electricity supply to the deputy registrar’s office for non-payment of bills. For four hours electricity supply to the office remained suspended putting property registration works to a complete standstill. Discom engineer Sourabh Sahu said that the deputy registrar’s office had not paid electric bill since 2016. “A bill of Rs 5.08 lakh was pending against the deputy registrar’s office, so its electricity supply was discontinued,” he said.
Following suspension of power supply, property registration works at the office came to a halt and could be resumed only after the deputy registrar’s office paid Rs 3.93 lakh of the total dues and promised to clear the remaining by February 28.
The Discom team had gone to take similar action against another defaulter regional transport office (RTO) as well, but stopped from snapping the power supply after the latter promised to clear their Rs 1 lakh pending bill within two days. Sahu stated that the Discom had launched crackdown on government offices that are defaulting on heavy electricity bills for a long time. Action will be taken against other defaulters soon, he added.
Notably, to one’s wonder, while common men are never spared for defaulting on even a paltry three-digit sum of dues, many government offices under Vijay Nagar zone are among the major defaulters of electricity bills, with some owing lakhs of rupees to the company. While a bill of Rs 70 lakh is pending against IMC for borewell connections, a due of Rs 4.16 lakh is pending against Vijay Nagar police station and Rs 1.90 lakh against Heera Nagar police station. Traffic police too are yet to pay a bill of Rs 70,000 for the electricity consumed by CCTVs installed at various locations in Vijay Nagar area by them.