Panipat residents get power shocker

Mukesh Tandon
Tribune News Service
Panipat, October 11

City residents have received power shocker in the form of hefty electricity bills running into lakhs and crores.

Sunil Sharma of Gandhi Colony said, “The area of my house is 50 sq m and the load of the power meter is 5 kW. I drive an auto-rickshaw to make both ends meet. In February, the department calculated my electricity bill and I deposited Rs 6,019 extra accordingly. However, in April I was shocked to receive a bill of Rs 75,95,489.”

“I approached the power corporation office and urged it to correct the bill. Officials gave me an assurance of doing the needful. However, in July again, I received a bill of Rs 79,29,605. Not only this, the power corporation calculated an outstanding of Rs 1,40, 82,833 as arrears against me,” he alleged.  He said in September again, he received a bill of Rs 64,54,635. 

Sunil Sharma alleged that he had been making the rounds of the power corporation office for long, but to no avail.

In another case, the management of Arya Senior Seconadary School has received a bill of Rs 1,19,95,308. The school authorities are also running from one office to another for the last four months to get the bill corrected. Principal Jai Gopal Sharma said in routine, they received a bill of Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000. He said they had sent several written complaints to the department, but nothing had been done so far. 

He said the electricity meter installed outside the campus was burnt nearly 15 days ago and they immediately approached the department to replace it with a new one. 

Rajesh Dawar, a resident of Model Town, said the power corporation had sent a bill of Rs 86 lakh for his under-construction house. He said no one lived there and it had been lying closed for some time. “We have approached the authorities to correct the bill, but nothing has been done so far,” he said.

According to information, the power corporation had assigned the tasks of meter reading and bill distribution to a Bengaluru-based private company, BSITS, in October 2017.

Arvind Sharma, Manager, BSITS, said, “Power officials did not enter the meter change order (MCO) properly due to which round bills are being generated automatically. We have been making efforts to streamline the system.” 

PK Goyal, Superintending Engineer, UHBVN, said, “We have started a backend counter in the office to address such problems. We are also trying to solve these complaints at our end.”