Chairman of the PSEB Y.S. Ratra has said the Board has decided to ban transfers of all categories of officers and employees from July 15 to October 31 to ensure minimum disturbance in the offices during the on-going paddy season. Ratra has warned the delinquents of severe departmental action for dereliction of duty. According to sources in the Board, payments for purchase of short-term power are made within a day or two. This enables the Board to get a rebate of two per cent on the billing amount. The rebate keeps decreasing every day and the Board loses all rebates if the payment is not made within one month. After this a surcharge is levied on the bill. Board sources said bills of Rs 200 crore are presently pending. Of these, the NTPC had raised a bill of Rs 125.5 crore and the Board had made a payment of only Rs 66.5 crore. Board chairman Y.S. Ratra, when contacted on the issue, however maintained payments were being made on schedule and there was no delay on this score. The sources maintained a delay had occurred not only on NTPC payments, but also of payments to another vendor also. This, they said, was because of the phenomenal amount of electricity being bought by the PSEB. In April and May, the PSEB purchased power worth Rs 310 crore as a short-term measure to tide over the demand-supply gap. This purchase was even more than the power worth Rs 280 crore bought during the same period last year. The sources said in June the Board purchased very expensive power at rates going up to Rs 11.25 per unit. Even presently the Board was purchasing power at an average rate of around Rs 7 per unit. The PSEB had also overdrawn from the national grid during April. The Board overdrew 25 lakh units and had to pay a prohibitive Rs 10 per unit as a penalty costing it Rs 25 crore.