60,000 get faulty power bill
PTI, PANAJI | 22 February 2011 21:14 IST
An error in the software employed bythe Goa Electricity department here has left around 60,000 consumers in lurch after it generated faulty bills.
State power minister Aleixo Sequeira conceded that theerror has affected several consumers here following which the electricity department has decided to scrap its contract with the provider software firm.
He said the software was provided to them bythe Information Technology department, which had procured it from a private firm.
The error led to exorbitant power bills and in some cases showed zero bill amount.
"We are totally unhappy with the services of the companywhich has provided the software," Sequeira said.
The power department is perturbed as the software companyand Information technology department officials have refused to co-operate with them on rectifying the issue.
"We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to consumers,"the minister said adding the department will now opt for on-the-spot billing.
Sequeira said the department has introduced on the spotbilling in his own constituency at Loutolim and it will be soon introduced in rest of the state.
"There will be no billing arrears and faults once bills are generated on-the-spot," he said.
This so called on the spot billing which has been imposed on us for allmost a year now does not a follow transparent and clean billing software program ..... Bills are generated in less than a month, 20 ,25,26 days etc. still min charges of a month are charged for days less then a month ......so in this case if consumer consumes less units, and after calculation the total bill amount a ends up being less then the minimum charges(whichever is higher is supposed to be charged) then minimum charges are charged....but according to the electricity act 2003 and its succesive ammendments min charges are charged for a month ...month means calender month or 30 days. not 20 days , 17 days etc.....same thing happens for eg if they come after 1 month 19 days they produce bill for 2 months.
some times If in a particular month consumer is away on holiday(meter is outside the house) and electricity units consumed are(zero) 0.... then they check the record of previous 2 months and calculate average of previous two months and produce you a bill which could end up being anything based on your previous bills consumption for eg. 300 Rs or 800 Rs or maybe it could even be 5032 Rs.....???? what the @#@$ !!!! where did this bill come from when you havent even used one unit.....at the most they are authorized to charge the consumer is min charges per month......Even after writing to the Electricity Dept and (On The Spot) contractors they dont seem to care about explaining the billing or rectifying thier mistake they still continue with the same
The on the spot billing has a lot of faults too.. Its faulty generates higer bills the the actual consumption