Srinagar, Sept 08: The Jammu and Kashmir Government on Thursday approved the amnesty scheme for domestic power consumers and waived of their surcharge or interest of more than Rs 937 crore.
The domestic consumers have been asked to only pay the principal amount in 12 installments and failure to do the same would incur a legal action against the defaulter, officials said.
They added that the decision was taken by the Administrative Council (AC) which met here under the chairmanship of the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha.
Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary, J&K and Nitishwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor attended the meeting.
As per the officials, the decision is going to benefit more than 5.50 lakh domestic consumers by waiving off an amount of Rs. 937.34 crore, accumulated as surcharge or interest, on account of non-payment of timely dues.
The officials said that the Administrative Council has provided this last opportunity to the consumers in view of not being able to avail the benefits of last scheme due to spread of Covid-19 pandemic during the scheme period.
They added that the new scheme envisages that the outstanding principal arrears accumulated upto 31-03-2022 after waving off 100% interest/surcharge shall be paid in a maximum of twelve monthly installments.
The scheme further entails that the failure of payment of any instalment/instalments within the prescribed twelve (12) months period shall invite penalty and legal action under Electricity Act, 2010, in addition to the accrual of compound interest on the outstanding dues.
The consumers who fail to pay the current bill simultaneously with the payment of monthly outstanding instalments shall forfeit the benefits of the Amnesty scheme besides disconnection of power supply.
An independent Project Management Agency will be hired for overseeing efficient implementation of the scheme.
