Srinagar, April 22: At a time when people are facing hardships due to unscheduled power cuts, some consumers of PDD department, Hawal Sub Division, have alleged that the department has arbitrarily increased load on their own without their information and urged higher authorities to intervene.
A number of consumers said that the concerned authorities instead of listening to their grievances turn them away with “contempt”.
They said the load of some consumers have been doubled without their knowledge and interestingly the concerned AEE of the Hawal Sub Division Mohammad Shafi Akhoon said that it has been done as consumers are reluctant to install meters. Asked if he can single out some consumers and leave others, the officer said: “I carried load revision enmass but a large number of people, in a crowd, protested against it and to be frank enough I could not cope up with them.”
He said that the department is doing it in “piece meals” and it would be done for every household.
Asked if this “piece meal” can be done by carrying out it against few persons in a particular Mohalla or area and leave others, he said, “If people have any grievance, they can drop in my office.” However people alleged that the officials there don’t listen to them. “Our load was doubled from 0.75KW to 1.5KW. When we went to inquire with the officials under which law they are doing it, the response was discourteous,” they said, adding, “Let all consumers pay uniformly. They cannot single out some and leave others. If they are charging consumers at a flat rate irrespective of whether the meter is installed or not as per already agreement, how can they double or triple load on their own to others,” the consumers said and urged higher up to intervene. “we are not against payment of charges as per meter but when they are using flat rate as per previous agreement, let all pay uniformly,” the consumers said, adding, “By uniform payment we mean as per agreement not at the whims of the officials.”
However the concerned AEE said “it is wrong that if somebody is saying I am not behaving with them properly. If anyone has any grievance he can give it in writing.” He went on to claim that every household is using “5 to 6 kilowatts of load.”
Asked if he was cent percent sure that all households have been covered under what he termed as “load revision”, the officer said, “I will go and check myself.”
