हरियाणा में सरकारी बिजली कंपनियों द्वारा हर साल ग्राहकों को करोड़ों रु का चूना लगाने का मामला हरियाणा इलेक्ट्रिसिटी रेगुलेटरी कमीशन के संज्ञान में लाया गया। Issues of gross violations of HERC Regulations by Haryana Electricity DISCOMs brought to the notice of Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission
I appeal to you to kindly refer to my previous mail dtd. 21/07/2020 (trailing) on the subject. While through my previous last email dtd. 21/07/2020 as well as emails prior to the email dtd. 21/07/2020, I have brought out a link of the article as uploaded on my blog (the draft of which was shared with senior officials including Chairman of the DHBVN for their objections/comments/feedback. Having received no response from any of the officials, the article was published on 20th July 2020 on my blog with a URL हरियाणा में नए बिजली कनेक्शन देने में सर्विस केबल देने के नाम पर क्या भ्रष्टाचार चल रहा है ? Is there a scam in providing new electricity connection in Haryana?
I am attaching a downloaded copy of the above-stated article in pdf for your perusal, please. The issue emanated from feedback from one of the consumers who desired to have a new electrical connection for his newly acquired residential house (multi-floor having stilt parking) in Greenfield Colony. Faridabad during Corona Pandemic but was feeling harassed in getting the new connection in his residential premise for the unreasonable and illegal demand of the DHBVN officials in violation of HERC regulations. It has been explicitly brought out in the said article that the demands were illegal, unreasonable, and were in gross violation of the HERC regulations. I am briefly stating the following for your ready perusal:
1. Name of the Consumer: Mr. Nitin Virmani
2. Address at which electrical connection was applied: B- 925, 3rd Floor, Greenfield Colony, Faridabad
3. Application Number and Date: F13-620-197 dtd. 19/06/2020
4. The amount deposited: Rs.12,730/-
5. Applied Load: 6KW
6. Status as on date i.e 22/07/2020: The residential building 3rd Floor still not has been electrified. The meter is affixed on the pole just around 10 meters away from the premise. Input to the meter is connected. The output of the meter is not connected to the premise.
7. Reason: Applicant/Consumer did not provide 30 metres of cable length as per their illegal and unreasonable demand of 3 phase service cable of 30 metre length.
The perusal of various HERC regulations and the DHBVN Sales Manual has revealed several other points as analyzed in my said article. These are briefly:
1. DHBVN is not adhering to the HERC regulations as they are following only their sales manual.
2. Sales Manual is truly not in conformity to the HERC regulations.
3. No-where the Standard of Performances as stipulated by the HERC and the penalties thereof for not meeting the various benchmark of services are in compliance to HERC regulations. In fact, DHBVN has omitted the portion pertaining to penalties payable to the consumer by Discom for its failure to adhere to the benchmark of the services as laid down by HERC have been totally omitted. At several places, instead of reproducing the exact benchmark of services as per HERC regulations, it has given its own range of duration that too without specifying any penalty.
4. As far as the non-compliance of HERC regulations w.r.t the provisioning of a new connection to the domestic consumer is concerned, the same is analyzed and is mentioned in the attached article.
5. Since, during the course of communications with DHBVN, officials like SDO, Xen, SE, Chairman, and as well as their Vigilance Department were kept in the loop and surprisingly none of the officials advised for the corrective action. Despite the time and again requesting all the officials, none of the officials could sense the prevailing anomalies in the sales manual and HERC regulations intentionally or otherwise and advised JE or SDO to correct the situation at this stage itself. Inferences can be drawn including what has been published as a title in my article.
6. DHBVN at the request of the consumer as well as of the author of the article failed to provide conformity to HERC regulations about their unreasonable and illegal demand of 30 meters of the cable length. The lineman even offered to assist the consumer in taking him to the shop for the purchase of the cable.
7. The worst point never heard of in PSUs was that an installation report was generated fake and fabricated and uploaded on the website on 7th July 2020. Despite requesting the Vigilance Department to have a surprise visit to the site so as to verify the genuineness of the installation report of 7th July 2020, none visited the site on 7th July or on the morning of 8th July 2020. The linemen with the meter visited the site on 8th July 2020 at around 11.00 AM and affixed the meter on the pole without its output cable to be provided till the residential premise at the area of stilt parking housing the switchgear etc. This jeopardized the confidence and faith normally one bestows on the morality and ethics of the PSUs to anything is possible even in PSU and any fake reports could be generated or can be fabricated.
Haryana State Electricity Regulatory Commission is requested for its appropriate intervention as it may be deemed fit as the issue arising due to gross violation by DHBVN (since the issue was taken up right from the sub-divisional office to head office and at various level of the hierarchy including their Vigilance Department, it is to be looked at the organisational level) of HERC regulations, misleading the consumers with incomplete and wrong information ( I could not locate on their website about HERC regulations), non-conformity of their operation with the HERC regulations, etc. The issue is not limited to only to the problem faced by the applicant/consumer as referred herein but it is for all the consumers across the state of Haryana silently and being unaware facing such gross-violative practices of DHBVN for unethical gains.
Email dtd. 30/07/2020
Please refer to my last email dtd. 22/07/2020 (as trailed). While the consumer has been provided a connection on 29th July 2020, I express my thanks for your kind intervention. However, the JE who was supervising the connection refused to sign any installation report despite requesting as DHBVN has fabricated an installation report on 7th July 2020 without even providing any of the meter, cable, and the installation.
While on the above, I am confident that matter may be under your high priority for its perusal by the Hon'ble Commission for appropriate action. I shall be pleased to submit any additional details as may be so desired by the Hon'able Commission."
Unquote
Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission is appealed to pursue the documents for an appropriate action which may include but not limited to:
1. Appropriate action as per the Electricity Act as the DISCOMs are still violating the regulations wilfully, misleading the consumers by wrong and inadequate information thus making a lot of money in gross violations of the rules and regulations. This resulted in the deception of consumers through deceptive and corrupt business practices. Since the DHBVN officials in their communication have quoted their own sales Manual which is in gross violation of HERC Regulations, it implies that DHBVN/UHBVN has been deceiving the consumers across the State. It amounts to almost Rs. 3,000/- per consumer/connection on the face of it. There are more than forty lakhs connections as per rough estimates. The total amount comes to the tune of Rs. 1,200 crores or so. However, HERC may kindly assess the deception from its own judgment. If we presume that the total connections being released on an average of 1,00,000 connections per year, even then the financial scam must be amounting to Rs. 30 crores per year. The exact scam could be assessed after receiving information under RTI Act.
2. The DISCOMs may be directed to upload the Regulations as approved of HERC on their website. A compliance certificate to be uploaded on their website (preferably on their Home Page as well as in all their links to Sales Manual.
3. Take appropriate against the officials/ departments who are responsible for the regulatory affairs but did not care to take corrective steps despite being informed in various emails. The author will share all communications between the author, consumer, and DHBVN officials. The consumers across the State of Haryana have been deceived from the last several years. HERC may kindly assess the reasonable amount of deceptive trade practices. The amount so assessed may be recovered from the DISCOMs to be transferred to the State Consumer Fund for the welfare activities of the consumers.
4. An appropriate advertisement in the leading newspaper both in Hindi and English may be brought out for a period of at least 6 months at a regular interval as may be directed by the Hon'ble Commission.
5. Any other criminal action if fraud is detected at a later stage in purchases/ inventory of the cables gets revealed. This is also necessary as the burden of such a financial scams is always on the consumers.
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