[moralfibre]

India entered a lockdown starting ~23Mar'20. Among other shutdowns, the electricity department of the state ended up shutting down their facilities barring the bare necessities for maintenance operations. One key function of the state's electricity department is to conduct monthly meter readings and calculating your monthly electricity bill based on consumption. But, due to the lockdown, the agency informed that they wouldn't be able to send their frontline staff in risk prone areas. Thereby, a decision was made to not take meter readings and simply calculate the bills based on average consumption.

To those that are new to this and still rely on physical bills, you can register online to view your monthly bills and payment info on this Link

All was fine until Jun when the electricity department resumed operations for meter reading. Suddenly all hell broke loose when consumers started getting bills that were 3x or 4x of their normal. I was in for a rude shock when I saw that my bill was calculated at 3x the normal. So here's what I found out:


1) The electricity department revised charges in April'20. Link to the order. (Attached below)

2) The last time it was revised was in September'18. Link to the order (Attached below)

3) The tiered increases in fares are as below:



4) Detailed breakup will also tell you that the Sep'18 order had another tier for 500-1000 units. The April order gets rid of that and charges anyone about 500 units a diff rate:

[moralfibre]

So here's what those (extra) smart babus at govt's electricity department did:



Notice two phases, one during the lockdown and the other post lockdown lifting:

1) They continued to bill you for average units as seen in the months of April, May.

2) Once lockdown was eased out, they reached the meters and calculated the difference from March to June. #problem1

3) They simply used the new tiered billing units which resulted in a substantial increase in cost for two reasons:

a) The base pricing has increased 10%.
b) The tiered prices have an 8-13% increase right from the minimal tiers.

Therefore, the internet is now filled with anger from residents who are mighty pissed off with this approach.

This is how they calculated the revised bills thereafter:



Net net, they didn't deduct the units from the previous months units which would have yielded lesser revenue, the IAS babu thought, let's reduce the cost instead and shift most users to the top 500+ unit buckets.

P.S. This is a part of your bill and this is where the electricity department is pointing you to for viewing why your bills are high:



You can view the same here by inputing your consumer number - Link


Disclaimer: These calculations and assumptions are based on my assessment of their Apr'20 order. Actuals may vary but more or less boils down to this approach.

Related press coverage:

1) Times of India

2) Pune Mirror

3) Times Now

4) Times of India

[moralfibre]

Note: Thread moved from the Assembly line to the Shifting Gears section.

[petrolHead_1609]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

1) They continued to bill you for average units as seen in the months of April, May.

2) Once lockdown was eased out, they reached the meters and calculated the difference from March to June. #problem1

This is ethically wrong. This could even be called as
'cheat'ing the public. For the losses they have incurred, they could have had some extra cost in a separate head but this way of calculation is really absurd. Provided that the consumption especially in these 3 months is never the same as average consumption (increased use of fans, coolers and AC).

Many thanks for providing the links for media coverage.

I just ran by this article with my dad, we have another home in a different part of city and we weren't able to visit there for last month. SMS for the same has been received by him, which mentions that the difference of reading before 3 months and now is 3 units and that this has been divided equally into all the three months. This message was sent to him on 25-06-2020. I think that the outrage has changed their way of calculation.

[Thermodynamics]

Same case in Chennai as well. One of my relative runs a Gym. You know Gyms remain shut as we speak. The Bill for the month of May was 45% higher than regular. Imagine you have a shut business, zero income but you got to pay rental and also bear increase in electricity charges.

TNEB also has this mysterious "other charges" category which is a substantial fraction of overall amount.

In Bengaluru, few years back, Bescom used to do yo yo billing. The reading dates will sway +-1 week every alternate month.

Example reading dates
Month 1 : June 1 to July 7
Month 2 : July 7 to Aug 1
Month 3 : Aug 1 to Sep 7 and so on

This effectively makes you pay 25% of your average consumption at the highest slab rates every alternate month.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by petrolHead_1609

This is ethically wrong. This could even be called as
'cheat'ing the public. For the losses they have incurred, they could have had some extra cost in a separate head but this way of calculation is really absurd. Provided that the consumption especially in these 3 months is never the same as average consumption (increased use of fans, coolers and AC).

Happened in Bangalore as well, they counted 2+ months of consumption into a single bill, prices got jacked and our loss has been about Rs.4k as a result.

Nothing to be alarmed about, just the inmates taking over the asylum. When the sun shines, make hay proverb is something the great governments live by, electricity, petrol, premium on medicinal drugs, alcohol, cigarettes all took a steep climb in the lockdown.

[ninjatalli]

I seem to have a different problem wrt to my gas bills.

Context - I moved into a 2 bhk house just right before the lockdown (~ a week). The previous residents were a huge/ joint family (~8 members) compared to the two of us currently.

The bi-monthly gas units historically has been around ~60 units which has now dropped to ~15 for the two of us during the last three+ months. Historically that falls into the highest slab, while our current consumption falls into the lowest slab.

However there has been no actual reading of the meter since Jan'20 till date so we have been getting bills with estimated consumption value of ~60 units, and a pretty large bill amount every cycle (paid for two cycles so far by us). For instance the current meter reading is at XXX610 while the estimated reading has gone upto XXX740. Our bills should have been around ~600 per two month period but we have got bills at ~2200 for a two month period.

I'm actually waiting for the agency to start getting the actual reading, but I'm wondering if they would actually update the corrected value basis the proper slab based calculations. Anyone faced this in the past?

Edit: my electricity bills also follow a similar pattern, but the difference doesn't seem to be that large so not a concern really.

[warrioraks]

Something similar is happening in Gurgaon as well.

I moved into a new rented place around February-end. So one fine day, was checking on Paytm for any bills against the electricity connection and saw a pending amount of 10k due within a week.
1. First surprise, there was no intimation from DISCOM on this bill and I chanced upon it because of my OCD to pay bills on time.
2. Second surprise, the amount was too high for a month of consumption.

Initially thought this is some overdue payment from the previous tenant and checked with the house owner. That didn’t turn out to be the case and I was practically looking at paying nearly 5x of what I would typically pay at this time of the year. Hunting for details, I requested the house owner to login to DBHVN website for downloading a copy of the bill. Typical of most government portals, it sucks and provides no useful information. All she could gather was the last bill payment date, current due amount and a cryptic bar chart (which did not add up to the actual meter readings). So adding salt to the injury, not only there was an unreasonable amount charged, additionally there were no bill details available (meter reading/calculations) either in hard copy or on portal.

Unhappy and panicked, I called up the customer care and guess I was told - ‘Saar, we cannot provide information on phone. Please click a photo of meter reading and visit the DISCOM office’.
So much for a lockdown in the middle of a pandemic!

Frustrated for the lack of options, I paid the full amount with the hope of getting this addressed once Corona situation improves. So currently I am waiting for things to get better, and seems it will be a long wait.

[SilentEngine]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Happened in Bangalore as well, they counted 2+ months of consumption into a single bill, prices got jacked and our loss has been about Rs.4k as a result.

Have you checked Bill of May and see the slab structure and the adjustment of previous months payment?

In Bangalore, BESCOM used average consumption of Jan and Feb to bill everyone for March since no meter reading happened. All automatic bill payments would have used this amount. For April month's bill, BESCOM took actual reading (this would now account for two months usage), and also DOUBLED the slab units so that consumers aren't billed extra. Previous month's payment was adjusted as well, so there should be no reason to complain.

Don't know what makes this situation any different.

[Engine_Roars]

Didn't know this was a country wide issue. I live in Pune and our monthly average consumption till May has been in the range of 95-105 units. This is just daylight robbery if they don't budge.

[AkMar]

Hello,

At least my experience has been different. You can check the bill calculation here: https://billcal.mahadiscom.in/consumerbill/

When I checked my bill I found that they have correctly distributed units as per tariff slabs for calculation of June bill by dividing total consumption equally into 3 months. I am satisfied with the calculation given on the above link. The amount paid for average bill of April & May has been subtracted properly from the June bill.

Initially I was also of the opinion that MSEDCL is looting us, but on careful examination of the calculation I was satisfied with it.

[anandhsub]

Originally Posted by AkMar

Hello,

At least my experience has been different. You can check the bill calculation here: https://billcal.mahadiscom.in/consumerbill/

Initially I was also of the opinion that MSEDCL is looting us, but on careful examination of the calculation I was satisfied with it.

Same experience with BESCOM here. I also got a shock seeing my April bill but then realised the increased usage due to WFH plus the fact that had paid relatively lower amounts for Feb and March justified it. However there are quite a few in my apartment who have seen massive errors in their April bill which were rectified later. Not sure what went wrong in the measurement.

[Iyencar]

Likewise in Mumbai by Adani. My residential FB group is full of posts with super inflated bills. What I noticed is people this time around are more angry and willing to do something about it. If you are in the same boat with Adani then you can see your bill amendement details here: https://www.adanielectricity.com/BillAmendmentDetails
Then you can submit your actual meter reading here:
https://www.adanielectricity.com/Submit-Meter-Reading

[humyum]

I am an Adani Subscriber in Mumbai. They had asked me to send my meter reading on the 8th of June, I immediately scooted to get the meter reading noted and sent it to them the very same day.

When the bill did come, they adjusted the extra units in the past 2 months bill so that the slabs do not change, added those two amount in this months bill and I am quite satisfied with the amount I have to pay this month on the whole.

We did use the AC a lot during the summers and everything just adds up as to how it usually is every year.

[R2D2]

I got slapped with a Rs 10K bill in June and raised a complaint. It's exactly as Moralfibre said, they haven't bothered to deduct the units (average billing) that were paid in Apr and May 2020. I am awaiting the outcome of that complaint but I received a SMS in Marathi basically telling me the bill was adjusted for previously paid bills and I'd have to pay up.