With the reference to one news item published in Herald publication dated June 8, 2020 (page 3) with headline “Salcete consumers upset over fat power bills” and the department officials reasoning that the bills are of two months and are from the period of lockdown.
Although, the department’s explanation briefs the issues to some extent but the larger issue is that a wrong methodology is being applied by the department while calculating the bill amount. If one observes the billing unit slab rates provided on reverse of the bill, billing rate for first 100 units is Rs 1.40/unit, next 100 units @ Rs 2.10/unit and units above 400 @ Rs 4.00/unit. However, these slab rates which needs to be applied at monthly rests cannot be applied as such for entire 62/82 days as the case may be.
Due to lockdown restrictions the bills could not be raised on a monthly basis, then the units should have been first averaged out on a 30-day basis and then the unit rates should have been applied.
The unit rates have been erroneously applied for the entire units consumed for the extended billing period (62/82 days as the case may be) as a month and as such units are billed at higher slab rates which otherwise would have been billed at the lower rates.
The department is hereby requested to correct this anomaly either by reissuing the bills or by giving due credit for the excess amounts billed in the following bills.
