TIRUNELVELI: A data entry error left a family at Maruthakulam village near Nanguneri in shock on Thursday when it received electricity bill for Rs 1.61 crore for the bi-monthly billing cycle of July and August.
According to sources, M Seba (43), the widow of Mariyappan, works in an anganwadi and lives in the house left behind by her late husband, along with their three children and her father Asirvatham. On Thursday, after Tangedco staff completed the meter reading, Seba received an SMS which stated that she has to pay Rs 1,61,31,281 for the bi-monthly consumption charges. The family, which usually pays around Rs 500 was stunned.
Seba’s father took up the issue with officials. Staff visited the house for inspection and they found out that the bill had been wrongly generated due to an error in uploading the consumption data.
Tangedco officials said staff had wrongly typed 14,10,907 kWh in place of the actual 14,109.7. A revised bill of Rs 494 was later issued to Seba.
Assistant Divisional Engineer of Tangedco Asha told TNIE that the mistake happened because staff had mentioned “07” instead of “.7” after 14,109 while entering the data. “Due to this entry, the system automatically calculated more units than the actual consumption,” she explained.