BHOPAL: A whopping Rs 3,419 crore-plus electricity bill received by a middle class family in Gwalior city of Madhya Pradesh, triggered a health emergency for the family’s eldest member.
However, with the matter being highlighted in the public domain in Gwalior – the home city and assembly constituency of state’s electricity minister Pradumn Singh Tomar – the whopping bill was corrected to Rs 1,300-plus promptly.
Also, the concerned staff whose error led to the highly inflated bill has been sacked, the assistant revenue officer of the power distribution company has been suspended, while the junior engineer of the concerned area, is being served show cause notice in the matter.
The incident happened with the Gupta family, which resides in the Shiv Vihar (Alkapuri) Colony of Gwalior city.
The holder of the electricity connection, Priyanka Gupta, was in for deep shock on July 22, after receiving the message about electricity bill worth Rs 3,419,53,25,293. Seeing daughter unwell on reading the message about the electricity bill, her heart patient father Rajendra Prasad Gupta tried to help her out, but himself experienced cardiac problems on reading the message and had to be hospitalized.
“Coming to know about the issue, I cross-checked the bill dated July 20 from the website of the state government operated power distribution company, the Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Company Limited, but the same inflated bill was shown uploaded there also. When the issue came out in the public domain, the problem was addressed and the flawed bill (which was to be paid by July 30) was corrected with the actual payable amount of Rs 1300-plus,” Priyanka’s advocate husband Sanjeev Kankane said on Wednesday.
“My father-in-law Rajendra Prasad Gupta, who runs a laundry in Gwalior only, has been discharged from hospital on Monday only,” Kankane said.
According to Nitin Manglik, the general manager of the power distribution company in Gwalior, “generally the electricity bills in the city are generated based on the photo meter reading, but in some cases where the photo meter reading couldn’t be done, manual meter reading generated bills are uploaded. The concerned staff mistakenly entered the service connection number of the consumer in the column meant for total electricity consumption for the month, which led to generation of the inflated bill by the software. As soon as the staff came to know about the matter, the bill was corrected. The concerned staff whose error led to the inflated bill has been sacked, the assistant revenue officer suspended and the junior engineer is being served show cause notice in the matter.”
The state’s electricity minister and local BJP MLA Pradumn Singh Tomar, said, “Just when the error came to knowledge of the power distribution company, it was corrected and action has been taken against the responsible staff.”