Puducherry electricity department recovers Rs 4.8 crore in arrears after 'name and shame defaulters' directive from LG Kiran Bedi

Kiran Bedi

The name and shame campaign run by Puducherry government to recover the electricity bills has delivered instant results, Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi claimed on Thursday.

Bedi, in a tweet, posted a list of pending bill amounts recovered in the last seven days. “The ‘name and shame’ increased revenues. Besides the dept also disconnecting some connections of those who thought they could still take a chance,” she said in the tweet.

As per the tweet, the total amount recovered in last one week under the campaign adds up to over Rs 50 crore. Out of the recovered amount, Rs 4.78 crore is the arrear amount, rest is current due bills.

The ‘name and shame’ increased revenues. Besides the dept also disconnecting some connections of those who thought they could still take a chance. pic.twitter.com/rbvPpLyLqI

— Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) June 28, 2018

Bedi, in WhatsApp messages to the reporters on Wednesday, had said that the name and shame strategy started working instantly. “Within minutes of defaulters' names being posted on Tuesday on the website, a particular industrial house cleared a bill of over Rs two crore," a PTI report quoted her.

She has also warned the defaulters to pay up arrears on their own to avoid disconnections or other recovery procedures.

Bedi has also announced that the strategy would be applied to property tax defaulters as well. A list of defaulters is supposed to be published on Friday. Over Rs 15 crore as property tax was due to the municipal bodies, she said.

Bedi has said the government would publish the names of defaulters in newspapers and also announce them on FM radio channels.

The lieutenant governor also said that as against 15,000 shops in the union territory, only 3,000 shopowners were found to have a trade licence. The rest would be covered through a special drive so that the revenue of local bodies would improve instead of depending on the government for grants, she added.

(With inputs from PTI)