CHENNAI: The past week has been one charged with confusion for the residents of Madhura Nagar in Iyyappanthangal. On Monday, more than a dozen residents from the area approached the Paraniputhur Electricity Board office but they could not get the complaint which has been festering in their minds.
The undeterred residents, gathering a bigger representation, went back with 30 or so people demanding someone explain their bills. While the complaints varied from household to household it all came back to the same source. The short little scrap of document called the EB (Electricity Board) card.
Firstly, the mismanagement of the EB cards. Besides tampering with entries, the official had also taken some of the residents’ cards demanding payment stating that he had ‘already paid for them’. But what irked the residents further was that the payment entries were allegedly not filled regularly and wrong bill amounts were pronounced on collection date.
“We decided long ago to not pay bills till they give us a solution. We are many retired people here, and many don’t even use an AC. We don’t know why we’re being charged the way we are,” said one elderly man, the father-in-law of one of the protestors, Sai Ganesh.
The said official has finally been taken to action (suspended) with effect from this week after acknowledging the formal complaint made by the residents. But the issue of tampered bills and blind payments paid by people still plague the residents who have stayed here for decades. “This reading official had already been suspended before. We don’t know if this will put an end to our hiked bills,” asserts an octogenarian who refuses to pay through his nose for a service he has not even used.
“My friend who stays in Kodambakkam also has issues of wrong consumptions and bill figures,” said Kokila R another resident, whose old omissions made by error on the EB official has been piled in a single bill charging her Rs 9,720 on her latest bill. The issue of unclear billing seems to be one that has cut into heavier summer consumptions confounding residents.
The EB official from Paraniputhur said last week that the issue of the tampered cards will be looked into.