Pay BEST power bills at grocers’

This news might bring some relief to the consumers of BEST’s electricity. The undertaking is planning to revive its plan of enabling electricity bill payments for its consumers at grocery stores and other such commercial centres across the city through a network of franchisees.

BEST general manager Om Prakash Gupta said that presently there are a few hundred franchisees spread across the city. They are enrolled with two agencies which manage the cash transactions. However, the scheme has not got the expected response due to poor promotion and relatively less number of franchises.

“We will try to revive the scheme and promote it in a better way so that more BEST consumers can use the facility. Once the scheme is operational, the consumers will have convenient options which will make long queues for bill payment unnecessary.”

The customer has to pay the bill at the shops and the amount gets credited within a day.

The issue was brought up for discussion by BEST committee member Ravi Raja in the committee’s Monday meeting. Raja criticised the administration for not doing enough to promote the scheme, which he said increases the convenience for the consumers enormously and thus needed to be expanded.

“The administration has not invited tenders, yet. It should explain why there has been a delay.” The BEST supplies power to more than 9.5 lakh consumers in the island city. However, delays have affected the scheme’s implementation.