Paying more troublesome
1.3 lakh prepaid power consumers in Ctg have to endure hassles to top up their meters
The pre-paid metering system is causing hassles for almost 1,30,000 clients of Chittagong's Power Development Board (PDB). Absence of re-fill booths and repeated crashing of the central server system is proving to be a headache.
The simple task of topping up topping up their meter-accounts, requires people to go down to the respective divisional offices of PDB. Many of them said that they have to stand in hour-long queues to refill their accounts.
Furthermore, according to consumers, sometimes the central server system remains down and they cannot refill their meter-accounts for hours. During that time, their houses, offices or other establishments remain in the dark in absence of electricity.
Recently, four divisions of Chittagong's Power Development Board (PDB) were brought under the pre-paid metering system.
Several hundred consumers of Stadium division of PDB, Chittagong had to face this very situation on September 13 for around seven hours as they could not refill their accounts due to a server problem.
Timir Chowdhury, a resident of Chittagong city's Jamal Khan Road area, said he had to wait for around two hours in MA Aziz Stadium's PDB office to refill his pre-paid meter-account on the day.
“I had to stand in queue with over a hundred people,” he said, adding, “The PDB officials said they could not refill the accounts until the server went back up.”
“My house was without electricity for seven hours since morning.”
Echoing the same, Abdul Aziz, a resident of the city's Panchlaish Residential Area, said he had to go to the PDB office, around three kilometers off his residence, as there was no refill-booth near his house.
“If we are to travel three kilometers and stand in long queues to refill our meter-account, what is the benefit of a pre-paid metering system?” he asked.
Adding to their hassles, through a circular published in different newspapers recently, PDB announced that each of the single-phase pre-paid meter clients will have to pay Tk 40 a month and three-phase pre-paid meter clients will have to pay Tk 250 monthly as rent for the meter in addition to the electricity charge.
Ali Akbar, a resident of Khulshi area, said Tk 40 in addition to the electricity charge would hurt their monthly budget. “We are tenants…why shall we pay the meter-rent?” he asked.
According to PDB sources, around 1.30 lakh clients in Agrabad, Khulshi, Stadium and Pahartoli divisions of PDB, Chittagong have been brought under the pre-paid metering system under a project named Prepayment Metering Project for Distribution Southern Zone of PDB that began in November last year.
China Hexing Electrical Company got the tender for the project worth Tk 137 crore, said PDB sources, adding, each meter costs Tk 5,230.
The project was initiated to provide hassle-free service to the clients, said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, senior assistant director of PDB, Chittagong.
“Earlier, many clients alleged that they were getting ghost bills…they had to pay for what they did not use,” he said, adding, “The pre-paid metering project has been initiated to give relief to the clients from ghost bills and to reduce system loss of electricity.”
Asked about the sufferings of clients, Kamal Uddin, a superintendent engineer of PDB, Chittagong and project director of prepayment metering project, said the server seldom remains down and that it was not a regular incident.
“The server is centrally controlled from Dhaka,” he said, adding, “Since January, this sort of incident happened just three to four times.”
Regarding inadequate refill-booths, he said tender for a project named Third Party Vending would be floated soon to recruit refilling-booths in selected shops in every area.
“Clients can soon refill their meter-accounts from nearby select shops once the project is implemented,” he said.
Regarding the rent of meter, Kamal said they had nothing to do with it as the Ministry for Power, Energy and Minerals in a circular on May 7, instructed them to realise the meter-rent from the clients.
Kamal said more people would be brought in under the pre-paid metering project. “Around 1.5 lakh people in some other divisions including Rampur, Bakalia and Madarbari would be brought under pre-paid metering system by June 2018.”
There are around six lakh consumers in the port city, he added.