Mumbai : Power minister Chandrashekhar Bavankule on Wednesday directed the officials of Brihanmumabi Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking to check their meter reading system as well as the billing format, after Island city residents received power bills three times the usual amount. Interestingly, the BEST general manager Jagdish Patil himself got an inflated bill of Rs 8000 this October against his usual monthly average of Rs 3,000.
BEST committee members created a ruckus over the issue at their meeting on Tuesday, demanding that the BEST should not just correct the errors in the current bills but also ensure a foolproof billing system.
Bavankule called a meeting of all the BEST officials about the billing as he also received many complaints about increasing bills. “The format of the electricity bill is incorrect, so BEST has been asked to change it. There is a system of taking average reading and not actual reading. So the BEST officials have been asked to take the actual reading of consumed electricity,” said Bavankule. “In some foreign countries they are implementing radiofrequency system for billing, we are also considering it in state.”
This is the fourth time in a year that consumers have got inflated bills. Earlier, in September, there was a system crash, following which consumers got bills that were an average of the past three months. Subsequently, in October, they were shocked to find that the bill amount had actually gone up two to three times and meter readings were faulty.
