About 4 lakh consumers, whose meters could not be read, were charged as per an estimated average, and there were complaints that the bills were higher than usual
Following persistent hue and cry by the public, and intervention by the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited (AEML) has begun the process of adjusting the excess money charged to consumers.
About 4 lakh consumers, whose meters could not be read, were charged as per an estimated average, and there were complaints that the bills were higher than usual. Adani Electricity told DNA on Thursday that they found 40,000 of such cases to have been genuinely overcharged, and the excess has adjusted against the consumers’ bills in the upcoming months. “A consumer can click a picture of his or her meter and send it to us, if (s)he feels that there is problem in billing,” said a senior AEML official said.
AEML has a consumer base of 25 lakh in Mumbai city. The consumers were purportedly overcharged for the month of September, after calculating an average of their bills for June, July and August. The matter came to light after 1,10,000 people complained of inflated bills, by as much as 20 per cent.
The company says it is looking into the matter and has set up camps at Kandivali, Bhayandar, Bandra, Chembur, Goregaon, MIDC, Andheri and Sakinaka for quick redressal. They have also started a helpline and e-mail id to specifically to address these complaints.
Dousing efforts by the company picked up pace after the quasi-judicial body Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) began keeping a tab on the December 10-January 10 billing cycle. Anand Kulkarni. MERC chairperson said they took the suo motu decision to constitute a two member committee to look into consumer complaints. They say they have not received a single complaint about inflated bills yet. The committee will study what went wrong and submit a report by March.
AEML officials told DNA that they are already seeing a drop in consumption, which will reflect in the bills for the month of December.
AEML blames four factors for the swollen bills: A strike by meter reading staff between August 27 to September 1. This impacted meter noting of many connections and the consumers were sent a bill calculated on the average usage of the past months.
The second factor is that the new tariff schedule came into effect from September 1, and power providers had to raise tariffs to reflect it. Thirdly, due to a short monsoon and early onset of ‘October heat’, there was a spike in demand to power air conditioners and fans/coolers. Lastly, the prices of electricity in national power exchange, from where companies procure power when demand increases, were as high as Rs 9-11 per unit as opposed to the usual Rs 2-2.5 per unit. The company vows to be keep a keen eye on these factors to ensure that erroneous billing does not recur. Specifically, AEML will be more diligent about meter-readings.
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