While the State government has declared 2022-23 as the Year of Enterprises with an aim to promoting micro, small and medium enterprises, a young entrepreneur claims he has suffered huge losses after the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB ) disconnected power supply to his ice-cream parlour in Kollam over a bill arrears of ₹214.
Rohit Abraham, a student entrepreneur, says the unexpected blow cost him ₹1.12 lakh as an entire stock of pop sticks and kulfis were rendered useless after the incident. “I started my venture ‘Eis’ as I was impressed by the Kerala government’s many schemes to encourage entrepreneurship amongst students. Eis has branches in Thiruvananthapuram and Varkala and the third branch in Kollam was opened one-and-a-half months ago. The power supply was cut without informing us or the building owner,” he says.
Without alert
He says the staff had no clue about the development until they found the fuse box sealed. “The officials said a bill of ₹214 was pending and it was generated during the time of the previous tenants. They had not notified the building owner about the bill or disconnecting the supply. There are many other businesses functioning in the same building, but only our supply was cut. The board was there and anybody can see it’s a shop selling ice creams, so they can’t claim the shop was unoccupied,” he says.
The incident took place a couple of days after restocking and an entire batch had gone bad by the time power supply was restored. Apart from losing the stock, the outlet has also lost all working days since last Friday, he says. “We have already lost five working days and we can reopen only after getting the new stock from Chennai. It usually takes 1.5 weeks and our total losses will be ₹1.12 lakh plus nearly 10 working days,” he says.
Writes to Minister
Rohit adds the matter was brought to the attention of the department and he has written to the Electricity Minister. “I have also approached the consumer court as such incidents should not be repeated. It will dispirit young entrepreneurs like me and I really hope that the government takes some action,” he says.
KSEB response
Meanwhile, KSEB officials said they had been trying to contact the consumer for several days and the bill was not paid despite repeated reminders. “We have been calling and sending messages to the registered contact number, but there was no response. Also, the consumer got in touch with us very late. We disconnected power around 10 a.m. and the bill was paid after 5 p.m. If they had contacted us in the morning itself, we would have immediately restored power,” said an official.
Published - March 14, 2023 06:25 pm IST
