THE Power Division has declared its intention to reform electricity detection billing system, moving toward digitalized and automated billing to curb inflated bills, reduce human intervention and strengthen consumer protections. The move follows concerns that estimated consumption used in detection bills for faulty or malfunctioning meters has sometimes exceeded actual usage, leaving consumers with inflated charges and lengthy grievance procedures.
The decision can surely address grievances and complaints of consumers with respect to detection billing and inflated bills, which put households in serious difficulties because of financial repercussions of wrong, faulty or inflated bills. The automated mechanism would minimize discretionary powers and human intervention in detection billing, addressing concerns over transparency and possible irregularities in the existing system. Detection billing and related recovery will also be reviewed monthly under the new mechanism. The monitoring is intended to flag overbilling and abnormal consumption patterns early, allowing distribution companies to take corrective action instead of allowing disputed bills to accumulate. It is a welcome move but much depends on its actual implementation as mechanisms to redress grievances are devised in a manner to allow unscrupulous elements to exploit consumers. A case in point is automated registration of complaints about electricity issues as every complainant invariably hears a pre-recorded message that a complaint against this number has already been registered. Complaints still take hours and days to resolve but complainants get a routine SMS after a few hours that your complaint has been resolved. Similarly, it is also pointed out that consumers of entire sub-divisions in the vicinity of the Federal Capital receive inflated average billing without meter reading and they are forced to run here and there for corrections. These issues can be addressed by ensuring better administrative control and oversight.
