PANJIM: Following Statewide criticism over “inflated” electricity bills, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant on Monday announced the deadlines for payment of electricity bills will be extended by a month.
“People are upset over the high bills but they need to understand the bills are of 86 days and not 30 days and hence they feel it is high,” he said.
He assured that he will look into the matter more closely. Sawant said he has spoken to the Power Minister Nilesh Cabral on the issue of high bills.
“I understand it will become difficult for people to pay and I spoke to the Power Minister and asked him to extend the date upto August 15. Earlier people use to get 30-day bill and now it is 86 days which is 2-and-half months. Hence people feel prices are increased. There is no increase in rate,” he said.
“I have told him to extend the deadlines for payment of bills, by one month to August 15,” he says.
The Power Department referred to the ‘reports of exorbitant electricity bills that have appeared, in the recent past in many newspapers’. “In this context, the Deparment clarifies that due to COVID-19, the bills could not be issued on a monthly basis due to lockdown. The printed bills, which could not be issued, were issued subsequently by extending the due date of payment and also waiving of delayed payment charges for the entire period,” it said.
The dept added that the bills have been issued as per the actual calculation of a period of consumption recorded by energy meter.
“Bills are issued on a pro-rata basis by dividing the consumption spread over the entire period for which bills were issued. Since the period for which the last bills have been issued, coincided with the lockdown period; and given that and people were mostly indoors, there is every likelihood that the consumption has increased.Due to this, the consumers are comparing their consumption pattern during this the particular time to the pattern during the non-lockdown period,” the department added.
“On finding the consumption high during the lockdown period, people have assumed that the meter has shown wrong reading and dept has issued exorbitant bills as per the said wrong readings,” it said.
