Revealed: why consumers received unusually high power bill

Ahmedabad, 21 February 2014

Bardoli MP Tushar Chaudhary was correct when he raised the issue of unusually high bills served to many power consumers in Tapi district of south Gujarat.

Following Chaudhary’s agitation, state government run power company ‘Dakshin Gujarat Vij Company Limited’ has started replacing 228 faulty meters for free of cost. Actions are taken against billing head and junior assistant( JC Valvi and DR Chaudhary), and both are suspended.

Tapi district had 23 vacant positions of bill readers. The officials of South Gujarat Power Company Limited didn’t care to formally appoint proper persons. Instead they assigned the task of meter reading to some local boys on temporary basis, without any agreement with them. These boys committed mistakes in reading the meters, which resulted into unusually high bills.

It is revealed now that each temporary boy was paid Rs. 3 per bill. It is not clear whether these boys actually did leg work to pay visit to each home for meter reading purpose, or just penned down the figures fictitiously! Interestingly, two power company employees suspended were not responsible for such appointments.

The entire issue attracted serious attention of authority only after mass agitation by local Congress MP and minister of state in centre Dr. Tushar Chaudhary.