Time extension for paying power bills without surcharge likely

The extension of time for paying delayed electricity bills without surcharge is now under consideration, Power Secretary Sultan Ahmed said yesterday.

He made the disclosure while briefing reporters via a video conference about the outcome of investigation into issuing inflated electricity bills by different power distribution companies.

Earlier, the residential consumers were allowed to pay their delayed bills for the months of February, March, and April until June 30 due to coronavirus outbreak.

In the meantime, many consumers received inflated bills and refrained from paying those in due time hoping that those would be corrected by the bill issuing authorities. But still many consumers' bills were either not corrected or were under the correction process.       

Responding to a question on such dilemma, the secretary said the issue was discussed with the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission. 

"We're trying to extend the time for delayed payment without surcharge. But we have to follow a certain process for it," he told reporters.  

He, however, said no decision was taken yet on allowing any delayed bill payment without surcharge for commercial and industrial consumers.

The power secretary informed that they have detected 34,681 inflated bills issued by Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, 15,266 by DPDC, 5,657 by DESCO, 2,524 by NESCO, 555 by WZPDC, and 2,582 by BPDB.

Altogether, over 61,265 inflated bills were issued by the power distribution companies. For this, actions were either taken or under process against 290 staffers of different power distribution companies, he added.

Over issuing such inflated bills, four DPDC officials were suspended, 14 meter readers of the outsourcing company were terminated, and 36 DPDC divisional engineers were issued show-cause notices.

Departmental actions were also taken against officials of other distribution companies as per their service rules, said the power secretary.

"The actions are being taken to regain the confidence of the consumers," he said. 

During the virtual press briefing, top officials of the power distribution companies said they would not further follow any manual system in preparing electricity bills.

Bills will be prepared by following the computerised system to avoid any error in issuing bills, said DPDC Managing Director Bikash Dewan.