Adoption of unfair billing practices has led to the Electricity Department overcharging consumers, whose bills have gone up by more than three-fold in one billing cycle.
There is no clarity on the billing convention and the period for which consumption is charged. Though a bill may state that it is for the month of March, it would have been issued in May with the last date being May-end. Moreover the units consumed mentioned in the bill are more than double the average consumption. In addition, though the new power tariffs came into effect from April 1, 2013, the same tariff has been charged for consumption in March.
Officials in the Electricity Department are unable to give proper clarification to the consumers who rushed to the department on finding a heavy bill given to them.
V Vengadesan of Mariamman Koil Street Vaithikuppam whose February bill was `249 with a consumption of 230 units, found that his March bill was `1233 with a consumption of 480 units.
Another consumer in Lakshmi Garden whose February bill was `507 with a consumption of 340 units got a bill of `1805 for March with a consumption of 620 units, to her utter disbelief.
The department cites of the use of ACs and the revision of tariffs to be the prime cause of heavy bill. However, they are unable to specify the period of the bill. A closer look into the bill details show that the metre reading has been noted after more than 30 days of the previous noting leading to inclusion of more number of days. The bill perhaps is for 40 days, suspect many a consumer. In that case, the charges for 30 days in March should have been based on the previous rates and the remaining days in April should have been on the new rates. Another aspect being that since the tariff have been fixed for monthly remission of charges, including more number of days would mean that more number of units would fall in the highest slab of charges (beyond 300 units). This is unfair as even those whose average charge is below the 300 units, will fall in the highest charging slab due to this unfair practice and pay additionally.
Others also pay additional charges in the highest slabs for the next months units consumed through inclusion in the bill.
This is seen as indirectly fleecing the consumers by the cash-starved Electricity Department. MLA and former Minister K.Lakshminarayanan said that the government should immediately refrain from this ‘unethical’ practice and drop the illegal billing.
Moreover the irrational new slab of high tariff should be scrapped, he said. Already people were feeling the heat of inflation, but now the government has imposed additional burdens on them, added Lakshminarayanan.