Consumer is the king! Bescom is new adherent

Rest assured if you are a Bescom consumer and are looking to approach the company for your grievances. The electrical supply utility will now address your grievances seriously.

After a long wait, consumers can now become a part of the functioning of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom), as it will soon launch a consumer relations department to build bridges between the company and its consumers, including domestic, commercial and industrial consumers.

As mentioned by Bescom managing director, P Manivannan in his presentation during the public hearings, Bescom intends to form a participatory council with those men on board who represented consumers during the public hearing held in KERC.

This council would bring out the long pending issues and grievances from the consumer’s end and also share experiences on how to make the existing system consumer friendly. Bescom will have a meeting to discuss the formation of such a committee with consumers on Saturday.

Once the committee is formed, the department will soon follow, along with a feedback system, where consumers can send their feedback regarding the works done by the company for them. But this process would take some time, said higher officials in the company.

The committee will have three tiers, with the consumers at the substation level at the lowest tier to represent themselves at the committee. The second and topmost tier would have representations at ward level and corporation level, respectively.

No member in the panel should have political affiliations, and should be ready to work in a team to achieve a shared goal.
Sridhar Prabhu, the advocate who fought the power tariff hike case on behalf of all domestic consumers of Bangalore in the KERC hearing, said it is a revolutionary change.

“In principle, the people should be involved in the civic body. Let them go public, and let the issues be shared so that the consumer becomes the real stakeholder. Though I have opted out of the council, I think it is a good beginning,” he said.