Connection cut from 18th February in Western Odisha, Wesco

Wesco, a power supply company in West Odisha, has decided to start a campaign to recover outstanding electricity bills from 18th of this month February. It is noted that, earlier  Nesco and Southco had already start the outstanding electricity bill recovery from last month.

There are 9 districts depends on Wesco for electrictity and that are Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Bargarh, Balangir, Deogarh, Sonpur, Kalahandi and Nuapada.  Wesco  disconnect the electricity connection of customers who do not pay the outstanding electricity bills.

At a press conference held at the local Wesco office in Cheruapada on Saturday afternoon, Wesco’s official Tapas Kumar Patnaik said that Wesco  is committed to provide better electricity service to its customers, but the electricity bills of 2117 crores owed to millions of customers has become a major deterrent. . Millions of customers have been using electricity for years, but are not paying electricity bills. Other customers along with the company are suffering due to this. Wesco  can no longer bear the burden of the outstanding electricity bill. In such a situation, a campaign will be started from February 18 to collect the outstanding electricity bill from the customers and the electricity connection of those who do not pay the bill will be cut. He said that to avoid this, customers have to pay the outstanding bills. For this, the bill can also be paid in installments.

Giving information, Patnaik said that there are 1,25,180 customers of Wesco  who have not been paying electricity bills for more than two years. Apart from these, the number of customers who owe bills more than 25 thousand rupees is 2,57,652 and the number of customers who owe bills of more than 50 thousand rupees is 1,34,561. There is an outstanding bill of more than Rs 406 crore on various commercial establishments, plants etc. Some of these cases are in court and the bill has not been recovered from them.

Patnaik further said that Wesco  does not want to disconnect the electricity connection of any customer, but despite repeated requests in this regard, it has now been decided to take action against such customers. Customers have been given time till February 17 to pay the outstanding bills. Despite this, if the bill is not paid, the campaign to cut the connection will start from 18 February. He has requested customers to understand and support Wesco ‘s problem. In this press conference Wesco General Manager (Commerce) Ashish Patjoshi, General Manager (Finance) Dilip Agarwal, Company Secretary Subodh Mahalik, Deputy General Manager (Finance) Kshirodchandra Nand, Superintending Engineer (Sambalpur) Sanjit Nayak, Chief Vigilance Officer Bhagyadhar Behera and Public Relations Officer Devanand Samal present.