Panaji: Power minister Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar on Tuesday said the electricity department has begun correcting power bills and will correct all bills within a year. He said the penalties of Rs 43.9 crore imposed on consumers for eight months will be credited and adjusted in future bills.Chief electrical engineer Stephen Fernandes said penalties have been stopped and will be returned to those who have paid and will not be levied on those who have not yet paid their penalties. He said penalties have only been levied on around 70,000 consumers, which is 10% of the total 7.5 lakh consumers. This shows that 90% of consumers are within their sanctioned load.He said the department is automatically enhancing consumers’ sanctioned load for single-phase consumers consuming up to 5kW. “The moment it crosses 5kW that consumer has to apply online and get the load enhanced within three months. We will remind them to enhance their load or change the single phase to three phase. Within this period of three months we will not levy any penalty,” Fernandes said.He added that load increase is necessary to ensure accurate infrastructure capabilities and to ensure safety and that there are no fires or accidents.The revised bills will charge consumers only the normal applicable tariff for electricity actually consumed and excess demand charges, excess energy charges and delayed payment charges have been removed, he said.
