Panaji: Amid ongoing protests from power consumers regarding hefty electricity bills and the smart meter project, the state electricity department’s Chief Electrical Engineer (CEE), Stephen Fernandes, announced on Wednesday that the department will shortly refund Rs 43.51 crore collected as load-exceeding penalties.
Fernandes made the announcement shortly after a noisy protest meeting of consumers outside the department’s head office in Panaji.
Out of the 7.5 lakh power consumers in the state, approximately 70,000 who were penalised will receive their money back by way of a bill credit.
The electricity department will revise all bills issued between November 1, 2025, and June of this year, reducing the delayed payment charge (DPC) to zero.
Fernandes said that while some of the 70,000 penalised consumers had already paid and others had not, all penalties are now being stopped and waived.
A government notification regarding the penalty refund is expected on Thursday, and the CEE claimed that department staff worked overnight to correct and revise the affected bills.
Addressing the controversial smart meter project, Fernandes said that it has been put on hold following instructions from Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. The project has been modified from its original scope; smart meters installed in Goa will now function like regular meters, operating without a prepaid option and minus the automatic disconnection feature, Fernandes said.
The department had procured one lakh smart meters, with about 43,000 installed so far. Around 80% of these installations are in Panaji city, while the remaining 20% are in government offices, electricity feeders, DTC transformers and sub-stations.
Fernandes clarified that the project’s implementation has been restricted to Panaji so far and has nothing to do with the penalties imposed for exceeding load. He said that the smart meter project, funded under the central government’s RDSS scheme, is linked to various other project fundings for the department. Scrapping the project entirely would result in the state losing Rs 160 crore immediately and a total of Rs 350 crore in the long term, Fernandes said.
Electricity department officials faced the brunt of angry protesters for the second time on Wednesday over hefty bills received for April and May. The demonstrators included Congress leader Amit Patkar and MLA Carlos Ferreira, among others.
