Barely hours after Express reported that consumers were shocked by abnormally inflated power bills, the Electricity Department swung into action on Tuesday to correct anomalies in the issuance of electricity bills. I K Madhivanan, superintendent engineer in the Electricity Department, told Express that directions have been issued for taking meter readings for a period of only one month and charging consumers for that particular period only.
Several consumers had complained that their electricity bills had gone up by more than three times in a single billing cycle. In the bill, it was mentioned that the charges were for the month of March though it was issued in May. Besides, the units consumed mentioned in the receipt was more than double the average consumption of the consumers. To add to the confusion, the new power tariff, which came into effect on April 1, was applied for calculating the bill for the month of March.
Madhivanan revealed that Power Minister T Thiagarajan, who sought clarifications from the department, was assured that corrective steps would be taken. The engineer explained that lapses in taking meter readings had affected billing with the department taking readings for periods exceeding 35 days and charging consumers accordingly. This resulted in consumers getting charged as per procedure with higher slabs, which would not normally have happened.
“Not only would charges be levied for a month, but also the correct month would be mentioned in the bill,” he said.
Currently, bills issued for the month of March reflected a period of consumption from the first week of April to second week of May, exacerbating confusion besides leading to higher charges.