A social media post which claims that ‘since 1947 Kashmiris have never paid electricity bill’ is being widely shared. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Ever since 1947, Kashmiris have never paid electricity bill.
Fact: The reports of Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation suggests that though the collection of tariffs is not 100%, most of the citizens of Kashmir have been paying the electricity charges. And the nonpayment of tariffs is just a part of losses facing by the power sector in the state. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Earlier this year, the Jammu & Kashmir government has taken steps to install the pre-paid smart meters for every house to reduce power losses and pilferages across the state. However, locals have protested against the initiative, demanding to revoke the move.
Against this backdrop, the Lieutenant Governor of the state recently urged the citizens to pay the electricity bills duly. Speaking at an event, the LG said that electricity would not be provided to those who do not pay electricity bills. However, few news articles reported the LG’s comments with misleading titles like ‘Pay Money to Get Power, No More Free Electricity Now: LG Sinha’. In all likelihood, headlines like these could have led to the notion that Kashmiris are not paying their electricity bills.
However, contrary to the claim, Kashmiris are not getting free electricity. Although the payment efficiency is not 100% percent, most of the Kashmiris are paying for the electricity. The annual tariff archives available on the Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Limited website corroborates this.
As per the 2012-13 report, the collection efficiency for the year 2010-11 stood at 78%, whereas for the subsequent years of 2011-12 & 2012-13, it stood at 90% & 95%. Further, the KPDCL has proposed a tariff hike to bridge the revenue gap. This implies that the KPDCL has been collecting electricity charges from the citizens.
The 2016-17 report enumerated the revenue earned from the existing tariff for the years 2014-15 to 2020-21. These details can be seen below. This implies that citizens of J&K are indeed paying the electricity charges and electricity is not being provided free of cost.
Further, there are multiple news reports of power distributors hiking the power tariffs and people of state protesting against the hike, which implies that power is not being provided free of cost (here, here & here).
Thus, the available information establishes the fact that most of the citizens of Jammu & Kashmir are indeed paying the electricity charges. And importantly, though the power department is facing loses in the state, citizens not paying the bills just constitutes a part of the loss.
To sum it up, electricity has not been free of cost for Kashmiris since independence.
