More than 500 consumers in the capital of Uttar Pradesh are facing problems due to high meter speed and high unit bills since last three-four months. If any consumer wishes, he can get a check meter installed by paying the prescribed fee. Readings will be taken from the check meter installed in the house for 07-15 days. After which it will be known whether the meter is bad or is taking correct reading.
In fact, the number of consumers complaining about fast meter running, high bills and non-check meter in the electricity department is increasing. In this case, departmental officials say that in most of the cases of meter running fast, the reason is old equipment and lack of earthing in the wiring. There is no fault in the meter. Madhyanchal Electricity Corporation Director (Commercial) Yogesh Kumar said that there is no shortage of check meters. As soon as there is a complaint of high speed meter, it is installed immediately. Where there is shortage, new check meters are being provided.
Now meter readers will put pressure on defaulters to pay
At the same time, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation management, which is engaged in the effort to improve the electricity system, has now directed to experiment with sending notices to defaulting consumers through meter readers. The management is confident that giving notice along with the bill will put pressure on the consumer to pay the outstanding bill and he will try to pay the dues soon.
Letter written to all MDs for this innovation. Managing Director of Power Corporation, Pankaj Kumar has written a letter to this effect to the MDs of all power distribution corporations. In which it has been asked to encourage new efforts for system improvement and revenue collection. Basically this experiment is of Ajay Anand, Executive Engineer of KESCO (Kanpur). Ajay Anand started the process of sending notices through meter readers, due to which the turnup of consumers has increased.
The reader will give notice along with the bill on the spot.
In this system, after taking the reading, the meter reader will see when the consumer has last paid the bill in the past. If the bill has been paid a month in advance, then on the spot, he will fill the name, address and outstanding amount on the form of section 3 i.e. notice, enter the dispatch number and staple it with the bill and give it to the consumer. The account number and mobile number of the meter reader consumer will be written on a notepad. At the end of the month, KYC updation of the consumer will also be done on the basis of information provided by the Meader reader.
The experiment of sending officers with Meader Reader became a campaign.
A similar effort was made by Varanasi Executive Engineer Neeraj Pandey. In which he started sending the department employee with every meter reader. This system curbed filling of fictitious readings and making bills with wrong readings. The management took this experiment as a campaign. Under which now senior officials and engineers of Power Corporation Headquarters are being sent to the consumers with meter readers under the ‘Consumer at your doorstep’ programme.