Chandigarh, November 14
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had played a cruel joke on power consumers by first presenting them with zero bills and now demanding arrears from 25 lakh families and making it mandatory for them to pay the same within 45 days.
In a statement here, senior SAD leader Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said the One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme announced by the AAP government was a farce and that consumers to whom bills were not served earlier were now being forced to cough up huge amounts in one go.
Asserting that the scheme had exposed the AAP government’s dubious claims, Dr Daljit Cheema said “if 90 percent of domestic consumers were genuinely receiving zero electricity bills, where had these 25 lakh families suddenly come from? “Why are they now being served fresh bills along with penalties reportedly amounting to ₹516 crore?
The SAD leader said now it had become clear that the AAP government had served misleading bills earlier and that the free electricity supply scheme was a political gimmick. He said the same consumers were now being confronted with actual dues and threat of disconnection by Powercom in case they failed to pay up.
Demanding that the government explain the entire billing exercise, Dr Cheema said it should also take responsibility for the financial burden which was being imposed on ordinary households. “Punjab deserves answers, not gimmicks”, he added.
