One Time Settlement (O.T.S.) Scheme

What is the One Time Settlement (O.T.S.) Scheme?

One Time Settlement (O.T.S.) Scheme is an arrears recovery measure of the Electricity Department, Government of Goa. Under an OTS, a consumer who has defaulted on electricity payments is allowed to close the account by paying the principal amount alone, and the delayed payment charges that have built up on those unpaid bills are waived.

The mechanism serves both sides. For the department, arrears that sit on the books for years are effectively dead money: the delayed payment charges keep compounding, the total grows past what the consumer could realistically pay, and nothing is recovered at all. Waiving the penalty component converts an uncollectable file into a cash recovery. For the consumer, an OTS is often the only realistic route back to a clean account and, where supply has been disconnected, to reconnection.

An OTS is by nature a time-limited amnesty, not a standing entitlement. That is what "one time" means. Each OTS is opened by a specific notification or circular that fixes who is covered, which period of arrears is covered, what exactly is waived, and by what date the principal has to be paid.

Is an OTS window open in Goa right now?

No current One Time Settlement notification was found on the Goa Electricity Department's website at the time this page was fact-checked. The department's site carries its circulars, notices, tariff orders and consumer-rights material, and none of the published items reviewed announced an open OTS window.

That is not the same as saying no scheme has ever run or that none will run again. Utilities across India, Goa included, announce OTS windows periodically, often around a financial year end, a tariff revision, or a recovery drive, and they are announced through press notices and departmental circulars rather than through a permanent page.

Before you plan around an OTS, do this:

1. Call 1912, the department's toll-free number, or 0832-2485500.
2. Email customersupport@goaelectricity.gov.in asking whether an OTS window is currently notified and, if so, its scope and last date.
3. Ask at your divisional or sub-divisional office, which will also be the place that computes your dues.
4. Watch the Notice section under Customer Services on goaelectricity.gov.in, and the local Goa newspapers, where such windows are usually advertised.

Do not rely on a third-party website, an agent, or an old circular for the current position. A settlement paid outside a notified window is simply a part-payment of arrears, with the delayed payment charges still standing.

Who is eligible for a One Time Settlement?

Eligibility is set by whichever notification opens the window, so the following is a description of how OTS schemes are normally framed rather than of a specific live scheme.

A consumer would ordinarily be covered if:

• The consumer is a defaulting consumer of the Electricity Department with outstanding dues on record.
• Delayed payment charges have accrued on those dues, since that is the component being waived.
• The consumer's category and the period of the arrears fall within the scope that the notification defines.
• The consumer pays the principal amount in full within the window stated in the notification.

A consumer is not eligible if:

• There are no arrears on the account. An OTS has nothing to settle.
• The account carries no delayed payment charges, in which case there is no waiver to be had.
• The consumer's category or arrears period falls outside the scope of the particular notification.
• The payment is made after the last date fixed in the notification.

Disputed bills sit in a different track. Where a consumer contests the arrears themselves, a faulty meter, a wrong tariff category, a billing error. The route is the department's complaint mechanism and, if unresolved, the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, not an OTS.

How to apply for a One Time Settlement in Goa

1. Confirm the window is open. Call 1912 or 0832-2485500, or ask at your divisional office. Get the last date in writing or by SMS if you can.
2. Get a statement of dues. Ask the divisional or sub-divisional office for a statement that separates the principal from the delayed payment charges. You cannot verify the waiver without that split.
3. Check the amount yourself against your own bills and against the consumer portal at consumer.goaelectricity.gov.in or the e-services portal at eservices.goaelectricity.gov.in.
4. Raise any dispute before paying. Once a settlement is paid, arguing about the underlying bill becomes much harder.
5. Pay the principal in full within the window, through the department's online bill payment, e-challan, or a bill collection centre. Partial payment usually does not trigger the waiver.
6. Collect and keep the receipt or e-challan. This is the only proof that the settlement was made inside the window, and it is what you will produce if the waiver is not reflected on the next bill.
7. Check the following bill to confirm that the delayed payment charges have been removed and that the account shows nil arrears. If they have not, go back to the divisional office immediately with the receipt.

How much can a One Time Settlement actually save?

The saving under an OTS is not a fixed rupee figure and cannot be quoted in advance, because it equals the delayed payment charges standing against your own consumer number on the date of settlement. Two consumers with identical principal arrears will have very different waivers depending on how long the dues have been outstanding.

That is why the statement of dues split between principal and delayed payment charges is the single most important document in the whole process. Ask for it in writing at the divisional office. If the statement shows, say, Rs 42,000 of principal and Rs 19,000 of delayed payment charges, then Rs 19,000 is what an OTS would save you, and Rs 42,000 is what you must pay inside the window.

Two things the split also tells you. First, whether the arrears are genuinely yours or belong to a previous occupant of the premises, since dues attach to the connection. Second, whether the account has any other head of dues — reconnection charges, security deposit shortfall, meter charges, that a delayed-payment-charge waiver would not touch.

What if the waiver is not applied?

Escalate in order:

• Divisional or sub-divisional office. The office that computed the dues and accepted the payment.
• Department complaint mechanism to 1912 toll-free, 0832-2485500, or customersupport@goaelectricity.gov.in. Online grievance filing is available through the e-services portal.
• Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum (CGRF) of the Electricity Department, whose functioning and decisions are published on the department's website. The CGRF is the statutory forum for consumer grievances that the department has not resolved.

The department publishes the Goa Electricity Supply Code 2018 with its amendments and the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules 2020 with the 2021, 2022 and 2023 amendments on its site. Those documents govern billing, arrears, disconnection and reconnection, and are worth reading before any settlement, because they set the consumer's rights independently of any OTS.

Practical cautions

• No agent can secure an OTS for you. Settlement is a departmental process against your consumer number, and any payment must go through the department's own collection channels.
• Never pay cash to an individual claiming to arrange a waiver. Use the online payment portal, e-challan, or a departmental collection centre and take a receipt.
• A waiver of delayed payment charges is not a waiver of energy charges. If someone tells you the whole bill will be written off, ask to see the notification.
• Arrears attach to the connection. If you have taken over premises with an existing connection, establish whose arrears they are before settling anything.

Where to get help

• Toll-free helpline: 1912
• Telephone: 0832-2485500
• Email: customersupport@goaelectricity.gov.in
• Consumer portal: consumer.goaelectricity.gov.in
• Online services: eservices.goaelectricity.gov.in
• Notices and circulars: goaelectricity.gov.in, under Customer Services and General Information

This page describes how a One Time Settlement works and what a consumer should check. It does not state a percentage, a cut-off date or a last date, because no current Goa notification setting those terms could be verified on the Electricity Department's own sources. Ask the department for the operative notification and work from that document alone.

How to check your One Time Settlement payment status

An OTS is not a scheme application that produces a file number or a portal-tracked status the way a subsidy or a certificate does. What you are tracking instead is whether your payment has actually been recorded against your consumer number and whether the delayed payment charges have been removed from your account. There is no single "track my OTS" screen on the Electricity Department's site, so status has to be confirmed through a combination of channels.

Right after you pay:

• Keep the receipt or e-challan number. This is your only proof of when and how much you paid, and it is what every other channel will ask you for.
• Log in to the consumer portal at consumer.goaelectricity.gov.in with your consumer number to see whether the payment has been posted to your account.

On your next billing cycle:

• Read the next bill line by line. Confirm that the delayed payment charges no longer appear, that the arrears shown are nil (or reduced by exactly the principal you paid, if the settlement covered only part of a larger account), and that no new disconnection notice has been generated in the meantime.
• Compare the bill against your receipt. If the amounts don't reconcile, that is the trigger to escalate, not something to let ride to the following month.

If you need to ask a person directly:

• Call 1912 or 0832-2485500 and quote your consumer number and receipt number. The department can tell you over the phone whether the payment has been applied and whether the waiver has been processed.
• Visit the divisional or sub-divisional office that accepted the payment. This is usually faster than a call when the portal and the bill disagree, since the office that computed your dues is also the one that has to correct them.
• Email customersupport@goaelectricity.gov.in with your consumer number and receipt details if you want a written response for your records.

Because an OTS window itself is temporary, also treat "is the window still open" as part of status-checking if you have not yet paid: a scope or last date can change between when you first enquired and when you are ready to pay, so confirm it again on 1912 immediately before you go to make the payment, not only when you first heard about the settlement.

Common reasons an OTS payment or waiver is refused

Because there is no formal "application" to an OTS, most of what would elsewhere be called rejection shows up here as the department declining to apply the waiver, or a payment not being accepted as a settlement in the first place. The specific, recurring reasons are:

• The payment is made after the notified window has closed. OTS notifications fix a last date, and payments made after it are treated as an ordinary part-payment of arrears, not a settlement. Delayed payment charges continue to apply. Fix: verify the last date on 1912 or at the divisional office on the day you intend to pay, not from an old notice or a claim made by a third party.

• The consumer category or arrears period falls outside the notification's scope. An OTS is usually restricted to specific consumer categories (for example domestic or a particular commercial class) or to arrears from a defined period. A consumer outside that scope will find the waiver simply not applied even though the payment is accepted as a part-payment. Fix: get the operative notification's text, not a summary, and check your own category and arrears dates against it before paying.

• Only a partial amount is paid. Waivers under an OTS are generally conditioned on paying the full principal within the window; a partial payment does not trigger a partial waiver. Fix: get the exact principal figure in writing from the divisional office before paying, and pay it in one transaction if the department's payment channel allows it.

• The dispute over the underlying bill is still unresolved. If a consumer is contesting the arrears themselves (a suspected meter fault, a wrong tariff category, a billing error), the department can decline to process a settlement until that dispute is closed, since settling and disputing the same amount at the same time is contradictory. Fix: resolve the billing dispute through the complaint mechanism or the Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum first, then apply for the OTS on the corrected figure.

• The arrears belong to a previous occupant, not the current consumer. Dues attach to the electricity connection, not to the individual who runs up the bill, so a new occupant can inherit a predecessor's arrears. The department may decline to process a settlement in the current consumer's name until ownership of the debt is established. Fix: raise this at the divisional office with proof of when you took over the connection, before attempting to pay.

• The receipt or payment channel used isn't recognised as a settlement payment. Cash handed to an individual claiming to arrange the OTS, or a payment made through an unofficial channel, leaves no record the department can match to a settlement. Fix: pay only through the department's own bill payment portal, e-challan, or a departmental bill collection centre, and insist on a receipt that states the payment is against the OTS.

Any of these situations is a reason to go back to the divisional or sub-divisional office with your receipt and statement of dues before assuming the waiver has failed outright. Most of them are administrative mismatches, not final refusals, and are correctable once the office can see the paperwork.