Relief for consumers as Tangedco allows bill payment without Aadhaar link
CHENNAI: Tangedco on Friday instructed its officials to accept bill payments even from those consumers who have not linked power service numbers with their Aadhaar yet. The decision came after the power utility’s servers were overloaded and the portal to link Aadhaar remained inaccessible over the past few days. In some offices, counters opened to help consumers link their Aadhaar with service numbers were also shut.
Over the last few days, people had difficulty in paying their electricity bills as staff refused to accept the payments unless the connections were linked with Aadhaar. The power utility, meanwhile, sent a message to all superintending engineers pointing to consumer complaints about difficulty in accessing portal to link Aadhaar.
“The issue was discussed with IT engineers and they said that steps were being taken to recalibrate the server to expedite Aadhaar update and verification,” the official note said. A senior official told TNIE that they are holding discussions with the state government about giving more time for linking Aadhaar with consumer numbers. The government would take a decision soon, he said.
S Gunasekaran, a West Mambalam resident, told TNIE that his electricity bill was due on November 15. As he was on a family trip, he was not able to pay the bill on time, and his line was disconnected. He tried to link his service number with Aadhaar, but he was not able to do it because of network issues. But thanks to the exemption given on Friday, he was able to visit the EB office and pay his bill at the counter.
The BMS (electricity wing) engineers association’s state general secretary E Nadarajan said the Tangedco’s data centre functioning at the headquarters was set up to maintain just billing. ERP and SAP processes were included later. Though the server capacity was increased periodically, it could not handle any additional load.
Hence, the power utility must increase its data centre capacity immediately, he said. Nadarajan also pointed out that due to lack of manpower, workers in section offices were unable to speed up the Aadhaar linking process. It would be better if the task can be handed over to e-seva centers, he said.
“During the linking process, tenants are given an option to link their Aadhaar with the service number in the portal. But option must also be given to remove Aadhaar number once they vacate the premises,” he said.