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Power staff strike hits consumers hard
The recent 15-day strike by the outsourcing employees of the Telangana State Power Distribution Company has resulted in heavy penalisation of the electricity consumers who are now forced to pay double the normal bill amount as their slabs have changed putting them in the category of high-end users.
Pushed into higher slabs due to delayed billing, consumers are forced to cough up double the normal bill
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Hyderabad: The recent 15-day strike by the outsourcing employees of the Telangana State Power Distribution Company has resulted in heavy penalisation of the electricity consumers who are now forced to pay double the normal bill amount as their slabs have changed putting them in the category of high-end users.
Neither the government nor the power utilities seem to be focussing their attention on this issue though about three-lakh consumers are affected for no fault of theirs. The power utilities use the outsourcing employees for going from door to door with hand-held machines who take the reading of the power consumed during the month and issue bills to the customers. But due to the strike, none of them attended to their duties and as a result the customers missed the billing cycle.
Instead of getting bills for 30-day period, the power consumption was calculated for a period of over 45 days. A customer who normally used to pay about Rs 600 a month is now forced to pay three times more as his slab went up due to consumption calculated for over 45-day period.
According to officials, this happened because before the strike when regular billing was done once in 30 days, the customer who consumed below 300 units used to get bills for lesser amount. But due to the strike the billing cycle changed to 45 days and when the meter reading staff visited the houses after the strike was called off, the number of units consumed was high and they were counted in the higher slab and accordingly they got bill double or treble the normal amount.
Raghava Rao of Malkajgiri told The Hans India that he used to get a bill for Rs 600 but this time it has shot up to Rs 1350. There are also cases where a customer who used to pay about Rs 700 per month on an average has now been given a bill for Rs 2000. When contacted, the power utilities while admitting that the strike had resulted in inconvenience for the customers expressed their inability to do anything in the matter.
