Snag in billing and payment for power inconvenience 1.8m consumers in Bihar

The snag has affected around 700,000 power consumers under the NBPDCL and 1.1 million under the SBPDCL across 63 towns in 35 of the 38 districts of Bihar, excluding Muzaffarpur, Gaya and Bhagalpur.

Around 1.8 million power consumers in Bihar will have to pay the combined energy bills for July and August next month after a snag in one of the two billing servers on July 30 not only impeded generation of energy bills, but also disrupted online payments partially.

Bihar discoms, the NBPDCL and the SBPDCL, however, claimed that advance payments were going on smoothly through their respective portals. (HT Photo/Representative use)

A team of software engineers from New Delhi are camping in Patna for the last three weeks to fix the bug, which has hindered operations of the two discoms - the north and the south Bihar power distribution companies limited (NBPDCL & SBPDCL).

The snag has affected around 700,000 power consumers under the NBPDCL and 1.1 million under the SBPDCL across 63 towns in 35 of the 38 districts of Bihar, excluding Muzaffarpur, Gaya and Bhagalpur.

“We expect to rectify the snag this week and shall resume generation of energy bills from September 1,” said Sanjiwan Sinha, managing director of SBPDCL.

“Online payments are now possible, allowing consumers to make advance payments, which they were unable to do earlier. The advance amount will be adjusted against their next energy bill, after the problem is resolved,” Sinha added.

The engineers have been able to fix the problem only partially and online advance payments through mobile applications such as Suvidha and Bihar Bijli Bill Pay are still not possible. Not just that, payment through the portal of the two discoms is not fully functional and the data shows arrears even when June bills have been paid.

“The SBPDCL portal showed an outstanding amount of 3,100 (approx.) for June despite the fact that I had paid the energy bill for the month of June on July 8, well before the payment due date of July 23,” said Sushant Kumar, a domestic subscriber residing at the New Patliputra Colony in Patna.

Suresh Narayan Lall, a retired electrical engineer and domestic subscriber, residing at Patna’s Bahadurpur housing colony, said the SBPDCL portal showed an arrear of ₹1300 (approx.) from June, which he had already paid.

Kumar and Lall were able to make advance payments through the SBPDCL portal on Wednesday.

Dr Sandeep Sen of Sen Diagnostics, however, wasn’t lucky enough.

“I have been trying repeatedly for the last one week but am unable to make an advance lump-sum payment for my energy bill of July. I get different messages on the portal. Initially, it said ‘error retrieving bill details, please try again’. Today, it said the consumer number is not registered with the SBPDCL,” said Dr Sen.

The NBPDCL and the SBPDCL, however, claimed that advance payments were going on smoothly through their respective portals.

“Total 194 (online) payments received today till now. Team is constantly monitoring the same,” read a text message from a senior officer in the NBPDCL.

Payment collection data till 1pm on Wednesday, shared by another senior officer in the SBPDCL, claimed 2,053 online transactions led to realisation of ₹30.79 lakh in urban areas while 5,894 transactions led to remittance of ₹73.30 lakh in rural areas.

Efforts to contact Chaturbhuj Mishra, SBPDCL chief data based administrator, the officer tasked to resolve the crisis, proved futile as he chose not to respond to repeated phone calls and text messages.

SBPDCL managing director, however, allayed fears of delayed payment surcharge being levied on energy bills for the period of the snag.

“The bill pay-by-date has been extended till August 31 for consumers whose payment due date was between July 30 and August 15. They will also be allowed rebate for timely payment, which will reflect in their next energy bill. All adjustments will be done in the next bill for consumers who have paid in excess,” said Sinha.