The 5th State Finance Commission (SFC) has recommended to the State government that all electrical installations of gram panchayats (GPs) should be metered and the present arrears of power consumption charges be settled with electricity supply companies (ESCOMs) through the intervention of the government.
The 5th SFC headed by former MP C. Narayanaswamy prepared its report for the year 2024-25 and submitted it to Governor Thawaarchand Gehlot and it said that “unreasonable” power consumption billing by ESCOMs for street lighting, drinking water supply systems, and panchayat buildings in the absence of metered units, by levying flat rates for defunct borewells and unmetered streetlights, had resulted in huge arrears of ₹8,323.25 crore as on December 2023.
“This is happening despite payment through Escrow accounts out of SFC grants of the GPs,” it said. During 2015, the arrears of GPs of ₹2,960.23 crore as principal and ₹806.59 crore as penalty/interest, totalling ₹3,766.82 crore, were settled through securitisation by the government.
