A study by an NGO working for consumer rights has claimed the power consumers in Rajasthan are paying 45% more on their electricity bills because the bills are sent to them after every two months.
“Had the electricity bills been sent to consumers every month, the consumers would have paid 45% less money for their electricity consumption in a month,” said Akhilesh Verma, secretary, NGO Consumer Rights.
Verma said the electricity bill amount increases because the break-up of unit consumption has been so framed that even one more unit pushes it into the next bracket, thereby increasing both the rate of unit and static charges. When the unit consumption enters into the next bracket, the monthly static charges too increase, further proportionally increasing the services charges, he added.
Verma said the hardest hit are the poor whose consumption is up to 50 units per month. The bimonthly bill pushes them into the next bracket of 51 to 150 units, thereby increasing both the rate per unit from ₹3.85 per unit to ₹6.10 and the static charges from ₹100 to ₹200.
He cited an example to explain his point. Suppose a consumer uses 250 units of power or more, but less than 300 units per month. His bill will be computed for the bracket 151 to 300, which has a rate of ₹6.40 paise per unit and a static charge of ₹220 per month. Thus, the total bill will be ₹1662 including service tax and other charges. But sending the bimonthly bill pushes the consumer in the highest bracket of 500+ units with rate of ₹7.15 per unit and static charge of ₹285 per month. Thus, the consumer ends up paying ₹3157, ₹1495 more for the same amount of electricity consumed, that is about ₹750 more per month, Verma said.
{{/usCountry}}He cited an example to explain his point. Suppose a consumer uses 250 units of power or more, but less than 300 units per month. His bill will be computed for the bracket 151 to 300, which has a rate of ₹6.40 paise per unit and a static charge of ₹220 per month. Thus, the total bill will be ₹1662 including service tax and other charges. But sending the bimonthly bill pushes the consumer in the highest bracket of 500+ units with rate of ₹7.15 per unit and static charge of ₹285 per month. Thus, the consumer ends up paying ₹3157, ₹1495 more for the same amount of electricity consumed, that is about ₹750 more per month, Verma said.
{{/usCountry}}He said sending electricity bills to its consumers in two months is a profitable business for the electricity boards/ companies in the state, but it should change in the interest of consumers. “Companies have no legal right to charge from consumers other than their actual electricity consumption,” he added.
Director finance, Ajmer discom, SM Mathur, said, “It is practice to send bill in two months, because of the time taken in getting meter reading and computing the bills. If government will order us to send the bill every month we will arrange for that.”
GFX
Consumers at glance at Ajmer DISCOM.
Total consumers: 40,81,352
(A) 37,77,402 (domestic consumers).
(B) 3,03,950 (non domestic)
THE SLABS
UNITS CONSUMED -------TARIFF-----MONTHLY STATIC CHARGES
0-50 ₹3.85 ₹100
51-150 ₹6.10 ₹200
151-300 ₹6.40 ₹220
301-500 ₹6.70 ₹265
500+ ₹7.15 ₹285