Mohali’s Posh city residents left sweating as PSPCL cuts power after builder’s failure to pay bills
PSPCL disconnected power at the Posh city, Mohali, owned by builder Sushil Dhara, as ₹1.86 lakh of the ₹4.40 lakh bill was found pending which resulted in the power failure
Amid soaring temperatures, as many as 70 families in Posh city, Sector 91/92 near Chapar Chiri, are living without power as Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) on Sunday disconnected their connections over non-payment of power bills for over three months.
PSPCL disconnected power at the Posh city, owned by builder Sushil Dhara, as ₹1.86 lakh of the ₹4.40 lakh bill was found pending on Sunday afternoon.
The area falls under the Kharar sub-division and residents have been living here for the past more than two years.
The developer had been charging ₹8 per unit from the residents, but failed to deposit the amount with the power corporation, which had installed a temporary metre at the location.
Speaking of the problems, the residents’ welfare association general secretary Sunil Kumar said residents the weather and power outage came as a double blow. He claimed that the builder had even charged an additional security amount of ₹7,000 from each family, adding that the collective amount added up to nearly ₹3 lakh.
Kumar said the building had no power backup.
PSPCL sub-divisional engineer (SDE) Swaranjit Singh, meanwhile said, “We have disconnected the connection owing to the power dues. We are conducting a special drive and have disconnected 50 more connections.”
Last year in August, PSPCL imposed a ₹5 lakh penalty on the builder for using power connections sanctioned for some other uses.
Upon being contacted, Posh city general manager Yatharth Vinayak said, “Some of the residents have not paid the bill, so we have not paid it further. We are hopeful of sorting out the issue soon.”
Earlier on March 23, PSPCL had disconnected power connections of a 139-acre residential project in Sunny Enclave, Sector 123, where around 100 families lost power over non-payment of bills for over six months. The power was temporarily restored one month later, on April 23, on directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court.