The Hindu : BSES urges consumers not to accept manual bills

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

BSES urges consumers not to accept manual bills

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, MARCH 9. In an attempt to reduce billing errors, BSES today urged its consumers not to accept electricity bills which had been manually amended. People should accept only computer-generated bills with bar codes, the discom's chief executive officer, Rakesh Aggarwal, said here.

The announcement came after the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) in a meeting with BSES officials today gave an ultimatum to the discom to set its house in order regarding billing errors before April 1. BSES is responsible for distribution of electricity in two-thirds of the Capital and has a consumer base of more than 18 lakhs.

Taking a serious view of the huge number of errors in the bills generated by the discom, the DERC Chairman, V. K. Sood, had convened a special meeting with all officials associated with the process.

In his presentation before the Commission, Mr. Aggarwal conceded that from February 1 to March 5, of the eight lakhs bills generated, errors were reported in at least 2.4 lakhs. Of these, 1.8 lakhs related to provisional bills. However, he assured the Regulator that there would be no errors in the bills sent to the consumers from the next billing cycle. Later talking to the reporters, Mr. Aggarwal said now their focus would be on eliminating errors. Stating that manual intervention in the issue of electricity bills have been removed, he appealed to the consumers not to accept bills that were was manually written. "All electricity bills should be computer generated and have a bar code on it," he said, and announced helpline number 39999707 to attend to the complaints of manually amended bills.

Following a directive from Mr. Sood, Mr. Aggarwal also announced to hold public camps in all its district centres where consumers can get the errors in their bills resolved on the spot. Besides, there would be special Sunday counters at consumer centres for the same. Mr. Sood is also reported to have asked the discom to make the environment and ambience of its consumer centres to be consumer-friendly.

Pulling up the BSES for the large number of billing errors, Mr. Sood is learnt to have told the discom officials that if they do not perform, the Commission would soon start compensating the consumers. According to the provision, the consumer can claim a compensation of 10 per cent or a maximum of Rs. 500 for first billing error, 15 per cent or a maximum of Rs. 750 for the second consecutive error. If the errors were still not eliminated, the DERC would decide on the amount of compensation to be paid by the discom to the consumer.

However, Mr. Sood "expressed satisfaction" with the steps being taken by the discom to eliminate billing errors. The company seems to have devised the necessary system, which if implemented effectively would eliminate errors, he said. "Now this has to be monitored and backlog has to be removed," he added.

Informing the various steps taken by the BSES, Mr. Aggarwal said the discom has put in place a Meter Management Group, besides introducing the system of pre and post audit of bills.

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