Even as the State government is providing 24x7 power supply to the farming community, despite opposition from a majority of farmers, villages in the erstwhile Karimnagar district are likely to plunge into darkness from Monday as the Northern Power Distribution Company Limited (NPDCL) has decided to disconnect power supply to the streetlights in all gram panchayats for non-payment of power bill dues.
The GPs are unable to pay the electricity bills due to non-release of funds by Centre and State governments. The State government has yet to keep its promise to release funds directly to the gram panchayats under “Mana Voru — Mana Pranalika”, “Grama Jyothi” and other schemes.
For the last three years, the GPs have not been given funds under State Finance Commission (FSC), Seigniorage charges and per capita grant, among other heads.
The GPs were solely relying on the 14th Finance Commission grants. Though, the norms state that only 10% of 14th Finance Commission grants should be used to pay power bills, the state government was directing them to use 30% Central funds for the purpose.
The NPDCL power bills accumulated to ₹14 crore in erstwhile Karimnagar district covering 1207 grama panchayats and 20 major gram panchayats.
NPDCL Superintending Engineer K. Madhava Rao said that they had sent notices to all the GPs to clear the pending power bills at the earliest or else they would be forced to disconnect power supply to street lights. “We will remove power for the street lights tentatively from Monday. However, we shall continue to supply power to the drinking water schemes in the villages,” he maintained.
State Sarpanches Association honorary president Uppula Anjani Prasad flayed the NPDCL authorities for unscientific issuance of power bills without installing the meters for the streetlights and water supply schemes.
