Kolkata: June bill relief for CESC consumers – Times of India

KOLKATA: Power utility CESC has decided to proportionately divide the quantum of units consumed during the lockdown months when meter readings could not be recorded for the June bill. The company will start dispatching the revised bill to its 28 lakh domestic consumers in the next couple of days and complete the process by mid-September. Delivery of the bill for July will be completed around mid-October.
Around 4.5 lakh consumers who have paid the original bill for June will not have to pay the new bill. But since the revised bill amount will be lower than the original, which contained the unbilled amounts from the previous three months as well, CESC will adjust the excess in the bills for subsequent months.
A section that received the actual bill for May will get similar benefits.
Meter reading had been suspended between March 24 and June 8 owing to the lockdown. During the intervening period, provisional bills were issued. The March 2020 bill was the same as that of March last year. For May and June, the average of the past six months’ bills was taken into account to compute the provisional bills. Since the months under consideration were winter months, the billed amount was lower than actual consumption during these summer months. Consumption also increased in several households due to work from home. Consequently, when meters were read and original bills for June were prepared, they comprised the actual units consumed since the last meter reading minus the units already charged in the provisional bills.
However, this led to an uproar from consumers as the June 2020 bill was much higher than a usual summer month bill. CESC first announced that the June bill could be paid in three instalments. It then decided to scrap it and come out with a fresh bill keeping the arrears of previous months in abeyance. No decision has been taken on when arrears for March, April and May will be billed.
“Of the 28 lakh domestic consumers, the June bill had been dispatched to around 10 lakh before the decision was taken to suspend it and prepare a fresh one. All 28 lakh will receive a fresh June bill along with a letter explaining how it has been computed,” said CESC managing director (distribution) Debasish Banerjee.
Officials said encoding of the billing software, followed by test runs and validation, had taken nearly a month. This disrupted the billing cycle, leading to a month’s delay that will take at least six months to rectify before consumers can start getting current bills.