Ludhiana businessmen seek interest waiver on advance deposit of power bills

LUDHIANA: City businessmen, led by president of Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU), Upkar Singh Ahuja, met the chief engineer of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) Varinderpal Singh Saini on Friday. The meeting was organised to address the problems being faced by the industrialists from PSPCL. The businessmen sought waiver of interest on advance consumption deposit (ACD) of power bills.
Ahuja said, “As far as PSPCL is concerned, there are several issues being faced by us. The major being interest on the ACD on power bills and high power charges. Considering the ongoing crisis due to Coronavirus pandemic, it is very important that the resolution of our problems is done at the earliest. Therefore, a meeting was organised today between our delegation and PSPCL chief engineer Saini. The meeting was held in very cordial environment and other senior officers of the department, including deputy chief engineer Harjit Singh Gill were also present. We also discussed the issues related to the industry like capping of power tariffs for industry and simplification of obtaining power connection. Chief engineer has assured us that all our demands would be looked into and a speedy resolution will be done.”
According to Pankaj Sharma, general secretary of CICU, “One of the major point that came up for discussion in the meeting was the shortage of proper staff in PSPCL offices, mainly Focal Point Division. In addition to this, we have also demanded relaxation in fixed charges and electricity duty in the power bills. We have also demanded that the rate of power tariff should be fixed at Rs 5 per unit for all categories of the industrial consumers.”
Chief engineer Saini meanwhile thanked the businessmen for giving him feedback about the problems being faced by them and the probable solutions and also assured that such meetings would be organized time to time with the businessmen. Meanwhile other businessmen who were present in the meeting included Honey Sethi, Gautam Malhotra.