The Uttar Pradesh government informed the Assembly that 60 lakh new power connections had been given to consumers in the last six months and efforts were on to provide quality power supply across the state.
Replying to a question of Samajwadi Party member Manoj Kumar Pandey, Energy Minister Shrikant Sharma said the department had extended the surcharge waiver scheme for consumers till March 25.
“The decision was taken with the aim to extend help to consumers,” he said.
The SP member alleged that there were several complaints of consumer getting exorbitant power bills and some people getting electricity bills even without having a power connection. He claimed that a farmer in Kannauj got a electricity bill of Rs 1 crore while another got a bill of Rs 1.12 lakh for a month.
The minister admitted that there were complaints of faulty power bills and efforts were being made to rectify them.
“In January 2019, the department corrected 14,09,682 electricity bills. Power Helpline (1912) received 1.93 lakh complaints about irregularities in bills between December 2017 and January 2019 out of which 1.45 lakh complaints were disposed of, which is around 97.17 per cent of the complaints,” Sharma said.
