Trust Based Meter Reading by Haryana DISCOMs like DHBVN and UHBVN- How much accurate electricity billing

All the electricity DISCOMs, also called as Licensees, across the country have been mandated to adhere to the rules and regulations as laid down by their State Electricity Regulatory Commissions. Some of the major problems being encountered by any electricity consumer could be w.r.t the Electricity Billing like:

1. Incorrect Billing due to incorrect meter reading or raising the bills on an average basis. 

2. Non-receipt of bills or delayed receipt of bills

The present article is being disseminated for the consumers of Haryana to create awareness among them, thereby enabling them to assert their rights and discharge their responsibilities . The scope of the present article has been kept limited to only billing issues. The electricity in Haryana is being distributed to the consumers by two State run PSUs namely:

1. Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) and 

2. Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) 

Both distribution companies are required to adhere to the rules and regulations as laid by Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) as per provisions of Electricity Act, 2003. 

Electricity Billing

The consumer shall be informed, at the time of releasing the connection, the periodicity of billing for his service, date in the calendar month when his meter will be read, bill issue date in the calendar month and due date for payment in the calendar month. It shall be obligatory on the part of licensee to take meter reading of a consumer within four days of the prescribed date.

(a) The bill issue date shall be the date of meter reading for spot billing system and in other cases it shall be within one week from the date of the meter reading.

(b) The bill shall be served to a consumer immediately after the meter reading in case of spot billing system and in other cases within a period of one week from the bill issue date.

If any consumer contests that he did not receive the bill within a period of one week from the bill issue date, the burden of proving that the bill was delivered during the said period of one week shall be on the licensee. In case the licensee cannot discharge this burden, the payment period shall start from the date the consumer contests that he received the bill.

The consumers are required to keep security deposits with the DISCOM equivalent to two billing cycles on average basis. The licensee shall pay interest to the consumer at the Bank rate or more as specified by the Commission payable annually on the consumer’s security deposit. The interest accrued during the year shall be adjusted in the consumer’s bill for the first billing cycle of the ensuing financial year. The Bank rate shall be calculated by taking average of the Bank rate as on first day and last day of the financial year for which the interest has to be paid.

Following articles on unethical business practices by DISCOMs like DHBVN have earlier been published in this blog, the links of which are given below:

1. Are Electricity Companies in Haryana like DHBVN adapting to unethical business practices?

https://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2016/02/are-electricity-companies-in-haryana.html

2. Corona pandemic in India vs unfair business practices of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) a State run DISCOM  PSU under Govt. of Haryana for generating inflated bills and pressurising/ misleading the consumers to pay the bills much prior to the due date of payment during lockdown

https://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2020/05/corona-pandemic-in-india-vs-unfair.html


Subsequently, Govt of Haryana has approved implementation of "Trust Reading" by the Electricity DISCOMs to address the issue regarding inflated bills being faced by consumers due to wrong meter reading or bills being raised on an average basis due to inability of taking meter readings by DHBVN meter readers. The meter reading and bill generation in Haryana has been entrusted to outsourced agencies. The Trust Reading concept has been introduced for Domestic Consumers, Non-Domestic Consumers and LT Industrial Consumers up to sanctioned load of 20 KW. The submission of meter reading by a consumer is not the norm, since the prime responsibility of meter reading lies with the licensee/DISCOM. The facility is to be used if you have reasons to believe that the meter reading recorded in the bill is incorrect. It has been observed that in order to have unethical business practices, the licensee may show 'less then actual' reading in order to raise the bill on MMC basis so that those units are also paid in the next billing cycle despite those being already paid on MMC basis. Therefore, consumers are advised to report even such cases where the meter reading has been shown to be 'less than actual' reading otherwise the consumer may face significant financial loss, if not reported. 

Instructions for Consumers for Trust Reading (Source: http://dhbvn.org.in/web/portal/home)

i. Haryana power distribution utilities have introduced the facility of Trust reading for the consumers. The consumer can use the facility to provide meter reading on his own and in case meter reading recorded in the bill is incorrect.

ii. The facility is for consumers of domestic, non-domestic and LT industrial categories (having load up to 20 KW) having 10 digits account numbers (refer Know Your Account on next page).

iii. The user should be careful while taking meter reading of the meter and entering of meter reading on this application.

iv. Uploading of meter picture showing current meter reading is mandatory. Please upload good quality picture of meter showing meter reading clearly readable.

v. In case the trust reading entered by the consumer is found mala fide, the facility of trust reading will be withdrawn.

vi. The status of the case will be notified through the SMS on given mobile number. Bill payment alert will be sent on registered mobile number only.

Implementing Process as conceived by the author

1. Since the meter reading and bill generation has been entrusted to its outsourced agencies and the recording of the meter reading is the prime responsibility of the Distribution Companies, the trust  based reading should not be used as default but only in case the consumer feels of having received the bill based on wrong reading or on average basis only. As soon as the consumer receives the bill, he should verify the bill to see if it has been raised on wrong meter reading or on an average basis.

2. The consumer should invariably verify the meter reading shown on the bill and report the discrepancy if any. The under reporting and over reporting could result in significant financial loss to the consumer. Hence the meter reading should be corrected even if the meter reading has been shown as less than actual reading.    

3. The consumer may record the meter reading and take the snap of the reading and fill the relevant details on the website of their service provider. One has to fill account No. given on the bill along with the mobile number. 

4. The OTP will be generated by the system and sent by SMS to the consumers on its  registered mobile No. which need to be confirmed.    

5. On successful verification of the OTP, the consumer can record the meter reading and upload the photo of the meter showing meter reading. 

6. The details as submitted by the consumers on the website of the DISCOM could be verified. The back end of the system would verify the details and if the details as submitted are found to be correct  prima-facie, the consumer would be intimated by SMS. The consumer after receiving the SMS from the DISCOM, can take the print out of the revised bill if required and remit the bill payment. It is learnt that the system may take a time of about 7 to 10 days on an average for getting the revised bill. In case the meter reading on its verification found to be incorrect, the system may not allow you to use this facility in the future. Hence, consumers are advised to take utmost care while using this facility. 

Points requiring consideration/clarification of Electricity DISCOMs

The following points needs confirmation/ reconsideration:

1. Even though there are bench marks for time gap between date of meter reading and date of invoice, date of receiving the bills by the consumers and the due date of payments. In author's view, it is a total of 17 days between date of meter reading and due date of payment. The bills need to be received by the consumers at least 10 days prior to the due date of the payment. However, in practice, the consumers are receiving the bills just a day in advance to the due date of payment and many a times, the bills are not received and/or no benchmarks are adhered to.  

2. In view of above, by the time, the consumer gets intimation of the revised bill, the due date of the payment is already over. Will the consumers, in such cases, get revised due date of payment?

3. The slab rates are calculated based on total days elapsed between opening reading and closing reading. As explained in point No. 1 above, the date of revised closing meter reading should be that of the date on which the photo of the meter has been taken. The slab rates should get revised accordingly. Even difference in the units consumed by a single unit would make a lot of difference. Will the system so designed would be taking care of such anomalies. It is expected the DISCOMs would have already taken care of this point. This may kindly be looked into by the DISCOMs and confirmed on such anomalies.  

4. The DISCOMs are requested to kindly upload complete guidelines/ procedure with benchmark of services on their webste as well as on the backside of the bill duly addressing the points brought herein.

A copy of this article was mailed to the senior authorities of DHBVN (SDO, Palla Substation, Xen, Old Faridabad, Superintending Engineer, Faridabad on their email as well as Whattsapp on 4th June 2020 informing about schedule of the publishing of this article and seeking their comments/clarifications to be provided by 8th June 2020 so as to incorporate the same in the article before it is published. A copy of the mail was also sent to Managing Director, DHBVN as well as Secretary, Haryana State Electricity Regulatory Commission . However it is regretted that none of the authority responded to the mail and whattsapp messages.

Haryana State Electricity Regulatory Commission is requested to kindly mandate DHBVN and UHBVN to ensure the SMS is sent to all the consumers informing the meter reading immediately in an automatic mode as and when the meter reading is recorded.