Cholera tragedy in Maharashtra village sheds light on power debts

Clean water had just started sputtering from newly installed taps in Pachdongri village in Maharashtra last month when the power supply to the hilly hamlet was cut off for unpaid bills.

Residents link this power outage to a cholera outbreak that followed, claiming five lives.

Pachdongri’s outstanding power bill of Rs 52,000 ($657), pending for about five months, accounts for a tiny part of the huge strain on India’s stressed electricity supply chain, in which power distributors owe $12.52 billion to largely thermal generating companies.