JAMMU: The Administrative Council which met here under the Chairmanship of Manoj Sinha, Lieutenant Governor approved extension of Amnesty Scheme-2022 upto 31-3-2025 in favour of Domestic Consumers of electricity. Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor; Atal Dulloo, Chief Secretary, J&K; Mandeep Kumar Bhandari, Principal Secretary to Lieutenant Governor attended the meeting. The scheme provides for waving off 100% interest/surcharge on outstanding principal amount. In UT of J&K, the domestic consumer category comprises over 86% of JKPDD consumers and around 50% of total energy consumption in the UT is from the said category of the consumers. However almost 30% of these Domestic consumers (Approx.5.50 lakh) in the said sector are either making staggered payments or have not made any payment towards their electricity bills primarily due to huge accumulation of outstanding power dues including late payment surcharges/interest which is leading to high commercial losses to JKPDD/ Discoms. The Amnesty Scheme has resulted into the recovery of Rs. 235.58 crore from domestic consumers. The Domestic consumers shall be benefited by waving off the surcharge amount and payments of principal amount in affordable installments (EMIs). The Government/DISCOMS shall be able to recover the outstanding principal amount which shall result in decreasing the ARR/ACS gap and shall have a positive effect on lowering of AT&C losses too.
