To

Sh. Yogi Adityanath,

Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

and Other decision-makers

Subject: Stop Illegal Profiteering from Electricity Bills by Builders located in Greater Noida/Noida due to inactions and/or silent support of the officials of NPCL and development authorities of Noida and Greater Noida. 

The essence of this petition is explained in this Youtube Video.  

Dear Sir:

We wish you good health in these tough times and we are hopeful that our state will win the fight against COVID under your leadership.

We wish to submit herein that initially many residents of "Paramount Emotions" made several representations, held meetings with the project managers of "Paramount Propbuild Pvt. Ltd" and its maintenance agency "Premium Facility Pvt. Ltd." and the outsourcing vendor "Jones Lang LaSalle" regarding illegalities on the electricity bills and illegal profiteering from electricity bills.  The answer to the representations of the residents was: ARROGANCE and UNILATERAL DECISION OF THE BUILDER AND ITS MAINTENANCE AGENCY TO CONTINUE THE LOOT. 

However, when the research was carried out in Noida/Greater Noida region, it turns out that Paramount Probuild is not just a single builder; in fact, almost every builder is blatantly violating the guidelines of the Hon'ble UPERC. 

The essence of the issues which the residents in this area are facing are as follows:

1. Builders collect the fixed charges from residents but never submitted the collected payment with the NPCL.  Greater Noida Authority has a 27 percent stake in NPCL. Any builder is making an illegal profit of INR 10-15 lakhs per month from a monthly electricity bill by not paying the collected amount to NPCL or by not paying the share of fixed charges for the units under his possession.  In alternate words, this results in a loss of around INR 1.2 -1.5 crores annually from one housing project.  NPCL as per official records has around 161 such projects under its operational territory.  It can be fairly estimated that with just 161 such projects, the loss to the State of UP is at least INR 200 crore annually.  Now if we add other housing projects and other distribution licensees in the Noida - Greater Noida - Ghaziabad region, the recurring loss to the state of UP can reach up to at least INR 500 crore or may be more, which is an important issue and requires a through investigation.

2. Builders/builder sponsored AOA normally combine the maintenance bills with the electricity bills.  Builders force residents to pay for the deficient maintenance services through electricity bill payments only; if protested by residents, their electricity supply is cut off. 

3. The maintenance agency of the project never collect fixed charges from the builders for the units which are still under the physical possession of the builder even after the issuance of the Occupancy Certificate.  Subsequently, the builder continues to use the electricity for the completion of the project. Therefore, typically the electricity bills of the newly constructed housing project are paid by residents only.   

Who is responsible for giving free hands to builders to continue this Loot:

Development authorities of NOIDA & Greater Noida and electricity distribution licensees such as NPCL. 

What is required to Stop this Loot: 

If the development authorities of Noida & Greater Noida ensure that at the point of issuing Occupancy Certificate for the projects, the electricity requirements are fulfilled for the whole project rather than based on the number of residents living in the society, the home buyers won't face such issues.  Even after the issuance of the Occupancy Certificate, if the officials don't remain silent or don't extend silent support to the builders, the residents won't face such troubles.  

Similarly, the Hon'ble UPERC has repeatedly issued the guidelines for the distribution licensees such as NPCL to monitor the financial transactions of their deemed franchises i.e., the builders in respect of electricity bills so that the builders don't generate profits from the electricity bill for multi-housing societies coming under the respective jurisdiction of the distribution licensees.  However, the distribution licensees do not take any appropriate action in this regard.  

It is difficult to stop this loot?

Absolutely Not; it just requires determination from the top officials to stop the loot.  However, this is lacking because few officials appear to be in direct collusion with the builders.  This was observed in the Amrapali Judgement by the Supreme Court, "Thus, apparently, the officials of the authorities acted clearly in collusion with the builders and overlooked the interest of the Authorities and home buyers while permitting the sub-leases of plot of land to be granted. It passes comprehension how the officials of the authorities could have permitted such sub-leases in the factual scenario of the case when even the basic obligation to raise the construction was not being fulfilled by the builders and they were not paying the dues of premium, lease money etc. The action of the officials of the authorities has the effect of causing unjust enrichment of builders from the land held by the concerned authorities. It was wholly an illegal exercise permitted."

Even after approximately two years from the pronouncement of this judgment, neither such officials were identified nor any action taken against such officials by the respective development authorities.  As a result, the home buyers continue to suffer from the hands of builder and their respective maintenance agencies even after the possession of their respective dream homes.

What CAN be done?

The Hon'ble Chief Minister of our state should consider this matter on its priority list as builders continue to ignore the regulations of the Hon'ble UPERC orders.  Few of the recommendations could stop immediately the illegal profiteering from the electricity bills and give relief to the residents in these tough covid times.

1.     Direct distribution licensees like NPCL and the builders to provide each resident through an email a true copy of the detailed computation of the details of the amounts realized from all the individual residents and the amount paid to the NPCL for every billing cycle of last at least five years.

2.     Direct the officials of distribution licensees like NPCL and the builder's maintenance agency to provide each resident through email a true copy of the audited accounts of the last five financial years with reference to the electricity bills.

3.     Direct the builders to immediately stop profit generation from the electricity bills paid to NPCL and return to each and every consumer the excess charges collected since first bill raised to the consumer along with appropriate interest.

4.     Direct the builder to recompute the fixed charges for every consumer on a pro-rata basis and compensate every consumer for the excessive charges collected from the residents for the amounts collected beyond the electricity bill.

5.     Direct the builder and distribution licensees like NPCL to update the residents clearly on the pending compliances for activating the multipoint connection for the residents of the respective housing society;

6.    If the builders continue to ignore the rule of the land and enforce their diktats, such builders be blacklisted by the development authorities across the state to launch the new project. 

Therefore, we request our Hon'ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh to take cognizance of this matter and setup an inquiry commission to take strict action against the errant officials and the builders who think that they are beyond the powers of law.

Best Regards,

Team - People Voice

Email: Info@people-voice.in