Harsh Dev serves Rs 5 crore notice on Power Dept

Jammu, July 25: Jammu Kashmir Panthers Party president and former minister Harsh Dev Singh on Tuesday accused the Power Development Department of granting immunity to big defaulters and persecuting honest consumers.
“In an RTI reply received today, Mr Harsh Dev Singh disclosed that several illegal occupants of government quarters, especially those belonging to BJP, had failed to pay power bills amounting to lakhs, with the government having failed to evict them or to recover the huge arrears from them,” a party statement issued here said.
“Despite non-payment of bills of such huge amounts, they were allowed to avail of uninterrupted power supply with special power lines having been laid for them. Besides misleading information was provided under the RTI as the new details did not conform to the details of arrears as provided in earlier RTIs with respect to the same set of individuals,” Singh said. “Further huge amount of money owed as power tariff by such influential persons had been waived off by the department while serving vague, misleading notices on several honest and regular payers of power tariff.”
Taking a serious view of the arrears of Rs 4288 shown against his name as power dues in respect of Estates Quarter No.6-A Gandhi Nagar Jammu, Singh said that it was a deliberate attempt to tarnish his image by showing the said amount as pending against his name. Singh said he had cleared the entire dues of the said Estate Quarter in November 2019 itself at the time of vacation of the said premises and obtained a ‘No Demand Certificate’ (NDC) from Estates as well as Power Development Department.
“The circulation of the power due/arrears statement and mentioning his (Harsh Dev’s) name as owing Rs 4288 was therefore highly objectionable and amounted to libellous publication,” he said.
In a notice to the power department, the JKNPP leader said, “Wrongful publication had damaged his credibility for which the Power Development Department was liable to compensate him.”
He said “being an honest and upright politician”, he had all along cherished high moral values and any attempt to lower him in the estimation of the public would be fought legally as well as politically.
In the notice issued to XEN Electric Division No-II Jammu, Singh sought the issuance of a corrected statement besides an apology letter from Power Development Department and compensation for slander amounting to Rs 5 crore from the department.