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Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 9
A plan to generate monthly electricity bills in circles of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has fallen flat in less than two months of its start, forcing the discom to revert to the old bimonthly system.
Sources said the DHBVN decided that from November 1, the consumers would get bills after every two months.
Arun Verma, Managing Director, DHBVN, said: “The discom was yet to start monthly billing in bigger circles of Gurgaon and Faridabad. In circles, where consumers were getting monthly bills from August, distribution of bills was delayed because of shortage of staff. This meant shorter grace period for consumers to pay the bills and long queues in offices to pay the dues,” Verma said.
RK Verma, Superintending Engineer, DHBVN, Sirsa, said: “In the bimonthly billing system, the discom had divided 54,000-odd power consumers of the town into two parts. The plan was to distribute bills in alternate months to each half of consumers.”
“We were catering to 27,000 consumers in a month. The figure doubled suddenly from July leaving our staff nonplussed. With the present strength, it has become almost impossible for us to continue with the monthly billing system,” he said.
To shift to the monthly billing was the DHBVN’s plan under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Project (R-APDRP).
It was started in Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri, Dabwali, Ellenabad, Fatehabad, Hansi, Jind, Narnaul, Narwana, Palwal, Rewari and Tohana under the first phase of the project in July.
In the second phase, monthly billing was to be started in Gurgaon, Hisar and Sirsa from August. But before Faridabad and Hodal could be covered in the third phase, the project fizzled out.