Urges dept to tackle illegal billing and power theft
PANAJI
The consumer rights group GOACAN has responded to the proposal for a power tariff increase, which is part of a petition submitted to the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC). The organisation has asked the Electricity Department to issue a ‘white paper’ on the revenue losses it has identified and to take steps to address them.
In a statement issued by its convenor, Roland Martins, GOACAN said the department must tackle the widespread illegal practice of commercial establishments being billed at domestic rates.
Martins explained that this issue is especially prominent in the tourism sector, where ‘rent-back apartments’ should be classified under the ‘commercial category’ to address significant revenue losses.
“GED should set up a dedicated team, led by an Executive Engineer as the nodal officer, to tackle this large loss of revenue,” Martins said. He also suggested that data on new buildings constructed in the past five years should be obtained from the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department, with site inspections carried out by the special team to confirm the commercial nature of the apartment’s use.
GOACAN also called on the GED to recover funds lost in failed projects, including the Rs 150 crore spent on the ‘Bunched Cables Project’, which has been acknowledged as a failure.
“GED must hold officials and politicians accountable and recover the funds from them,” the statement said.
Martins highlighted another major source of revenue loss: power theft. He argued that GED should routinely provide a monthly real-time report on power theft cases.
“This should be handled by a designated team covering every village and municipality, with the most common case being power theft through lit-up billboards along roadsides and entertainment events, which use power generators but actually tap into power lines,” Martins said.
Finally, Martins pointed to the significant loss of funds due to inflated costs in projects executed through corrupt tendering processes.
“It is well-known that tendered projects are often shown to cost much more than they actually do, leading to the siphoning off of valuable funds,” he added.
