This is what MSEDCL owes the civic body as its share of the Rs 140-crore expenditure incurred by the latter towards laying underground cables and moving existing electric poles. PCMC is planning to spend another Rs 100 crore in 2009 on electricity infrastructure, half of which it expects MSEDCL to cough up.

In the past 12 years, PCMC has spent over Rs 140 crore for these two heads and MSEDCL was to bear half the amount. MSEDCL has failed to pay this outstanding despite repeated appeals from PCMC municipal commissioner Asheesh Sharma and Mayor Aparna Doke.

“Ideally speaking, the work of shifting electricity poles and laying underground cables should be done on a cost sharing basis. We have taken up this issue at the highest level in the energy ministry. But we still have to get a positive reply from them,” said Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Commissioner Asheesh Sharma.

“MSEDCL is running at a loss and we are not sure when we can recover the amount. We held a meeting at the Council Hall recently in the presence of Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and senior MSEDCL officials to discuss this issue,”said Doke.

She said that for shifting electricity poles and laying underground cables on the upcoming Aundh-Ravet BRTS stretch, PCMC would have to spend in excess of Rs 60 crore. “Here too, we expect to get MSEDCL to pay its share of money. Already, for all the internal roads in Pimpri Chinchwad we have spent the money entirely from our coffers,” she said.

MSEDCL Pune zone Chief S P Nagtilak said, “Since I am new in office, I am not aware of the issue.”

Rishi Khurana, owner of Modern Dry Cleaners on MG Road, has been getting ‘faulty’ electricity bills for seven months. “ MSEDCL has been asking me to pay Rs 2,000 more each month over and above my regular bill, since June. I have been going to the MSEDCL office and getting this bill rectified each time. MSEDCL officials have been blaming some computer error,” he said, adding that nothing has been done in the past seven months to correct the error.

“On January 24, MSEDCL representatives came and said that they were cutting my connection. I told them that the due date of paying the bill was January 29 and they had no reason to cut my connection. As all this was happening in front of my customers, I paid them Rs 5,430 immediately, which is Rs 2,624 more than my monthly bill. So, now MSEB owes me Rs 2624 which I expect the utility to adjust against my next bill,” said Khurana.