The next time your electricity bill shows an absurdly high bill amount, don’t roll your eyes and ignore it thinking it could be because of the recent power tariff hike. Recently, Bescom gave a consumer a literal shock with a bill amount of over Rs 5 lakh! The reason was a computer glitch. If your bill amount exceeds more than the usual, then it could be because of a computer glitch or plain bungling while reading your meter. “I was shocked to see that the bill amount was for over Rs 5 lakh. I immediately notified Bescom about the problem and it was sorted out later. I was told it was because of a software error,” informed Mr Raja C., a consumer from Old Airport Road said.
In another case, a consumer from J.P. Nagar was surprised to see that he had been charged over Rs 6,000 for the previous month. “Our usual monthly bill is only around Rs 1,000 and I was stumped to see such as a high bill amount. I was told that the official who read the meter, by mistake add 1,000 units extra. However, when contacted, Bescom immediately sorted out the issue,” said Mr Sree Kumar, a consumer falling under S6 Bescom sub-division.
Interestingly, in the same sub-division, about 316 consumers were billed extra ranging from Rs 4,000 to Rs 1 lakh last month. The consumers were in for a shock, but later, Bescom explained that it was the back-billing charge as these consumers had shifted to LT-3 from LT-2. “During audit, they were found to be coming under LT-3 category while they were using LT-2 connections meant only for domestic households. Hence, they were supposed to pay the back-billing charges. This amount, however, till now has not been paid,” according to Mr Lokesh Babu, assistant executive engineer, Bescom S6 sub-division.