Pre-paid meters to rescue Banglore from disastrous electricity bills

Finally, a solution to stop your electricity bill from reaching a disastrous amount is here. Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) has adopted pre-paid meters service model for the city on a voluntary basis to help consumers lower their bills and bring in greater transparency in their service.

Bescom is also holding a workshop on the technology used behind it to educate people about the benefits of using pre-paid meters.

“Pre-paid meters are an excellent idea and this will bring peace of mind to people. I would also suggest that the Bescom centre in each area recharge prepaid meters. This will bring vertical revenue model into the system making it more transparent,” said RS Hiremath, energy expert.

This service has come into place after numerous complaints from the public at the consumer redressal forums, including wrong billing. “The advantage of the prepaid meters is that the Bescom will have lesser work to do. This means, they will not have to collect the three-month minimum security they take from consumers having regular meter. Also, this means that they will have faster and more regular inflow of money as the customer will pay the money in advance for recharging the meters,” said PS Jaggannatha Gupta, senior consultant, Power Research & Development Consultants Pvt Ltd.

Prepaid meters will, however, be only on a voluntary basis. It is entirely up to the consumer to choose it.

“This is also a good move. This means that the consumer will have complete confidence over the system as it is transparent,” he said.

Bescom MD P Manivannan said, “This move is done keeping in mind our consumers. We want to make the system as transparent as possible. In this system, the meter readers will not have to come and punch in the numbers. Instead, the consumer has to just pay the money and it will be remotely recharged.”