How many times have you dreaded the prospect of paying a utility bill. Where the electricity or water is provided by a Government department, the prospect of queuing up outside a dingy office, with a long queue and in the hot sun is one that most people shirk from doing, until absolutely necessary. Hence the concept of either the friendly neighborhood all-purpose man who will do this duty for a price, or the private companies who are making it a business to make it easy to pay utility bills. However, sometimes even the Government can think about citizens, and make it easier for them to pay such bills:

BANGALORE: Ever wanted to pay your utility bills while at a mall or supermarket? This could soon be possible, with the directorate of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS) likely to set up BangaloreOne kiosks at shopping centres soon.
As a pilot project, a supermarket on Bannerghatta Road is expected to have the first B1 kiosk. The supermarket kiosks will be open from 8 am to 8 pm and have two-three counters with six executives. Once the space is handed over, it will take a few days to set up the interiors.
A month ago, EDCS launched miniature BangaloreOne centres — B1 kiosks — at 20 locations across the city. The kiosks have registered over 50,000 transactions within 30 days.

It is when you read about such attempts by the Government that you think that there is still hope, that the Government is indeed adapting to changed environments. One has to see as to how many states will think of copying such initiatives.

Public Utilities need to be more consumer friendly. A good thing to say, right ? But it is very necessary. We all depend on public utilities such as the electricity generation and transmission, water works, sewage handling, etc as absolutely essential for a basic level of comfort in the cities. In most times, we have very little contact with these utilities in terms of need for visiting them for complaints or resolving of some disputes, but when such a need arises, it is typically found that most of these utilities lack in terms of being consumer-friendly and understanding the concerns and difficulties faced by normal citizens. One would expect a higher level of courtesy and understanding than what we normally find. Take a loot at the behaviour of Lucknow’s electricity generating utility:

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration’s (Lesa) high-handedness and the penchant for blaming consumers for any defect in meters has drawn flak from denizens (read consumers) of the state capital. The consumers want necessary changes in the method of meter installation and the way Lesa treats consumer whose meter is found defective.
“They usually come without any notice, apparently in their bid to make fast bucks from a hapless consumer,” charged Sanjay Mukherjee (43), a government servant and a resident of Alambagh. He demanded that the authority should install ‘pool meters’ (a common meter) from where connections could be given to individual consumers. “They can then come and check any time of the day. No individual would be targeted in that case,” he added.

It is necessary for the concerned authorities and Government functionaries to be much more responsive and understanding of the needs and concerns for citizens. And it is really a must that the utility should not automatically assume that a citizen is out to cheat or steal power.

Electricity billing is not supposed to be a high-tech area, and something that is being done fairly accurately and successfully by a large number of countries. Hence it seems somewhat strange that we see many cities having billing problems in terms of electricity. Seems like a casual attitude, or maybe not enough control over what is happening. Or maybe the powers be have not taken a good look at the problem to come up with a good solution, instead of keeping on trying to find new solutions. So, read on as to what the Pune electricity department has to say about why it cannot do billing properly:

Speaking to TOI, Gautam said that the MSEDCL was in the process of switching over from spot billing system — where bills were issued on the spot after taking meter readings — to digital photo reading in the city. “And this transition was leading to many billing complaints,” he claimed.
He said the new system was expected to reduce complaints about inaccurate readings, leading to inflated bills or issuing bills without taking readings as people entrusted with the job will be pulled up in case of errors.
Asked about instances when consumers had not received bills for years together, despite repeated complaints to sub-division office, Gautam said he will personally intervene in such matters. “Such complaints are supposed to be settled at the sub-divisional level, but if consumers are made to make repeated trips, the matter will be taken seriously,” he said.

Somehow consumers have to listen to speeches like this often, and the reliance they now put on such statements is far less. Citizens have gone apprehensive of the efficiency of Government institutions as well as their concern for normal citizens.

In a bizarre case of utmost dereliction of normal working norms by a Government department, a Pune based Colonel, fighting to get regular electricity bills for the past 7 years, was suddenly provided 3 bills for the same period, with a lump sum demanded for the entire period. In addition, the lump sum was different for the 3 different bills, with the even number of units being consumed being different. Now he has to run from pillar to post to try and work this out, with the department being of course least bothered about why this was allowed to happen, and not really caring about helping him out.

In an extraordinary case of billing irregularity by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL), retired colonel O.P. Verma (65), a resident of Siddharth Complex in Yerwada, was not issued electricity bills from February 2000 to June 2007 despite sending several reminders to the MSEDCL’s Ahmednagar road division office asking them to take meter readings and send regular bills.
In his petition, Verma has urged Gautam to investigate how three different bills of three different amounts were issued to him for the same period and why Rs 4173.79 was charged to him as arrears of interest. “The MSEDCL cannot recover interest from me as the onus of not billing is on them,” he pointed out. He has also quoted section 56(2) of the Electricity Act 2003 which explicitly states that “no sum due from any consumer shall be recoverable after the period of two years from the date when such sum became first due”.

This is a sheer violation of most consumer care norms. A user of a utility such as electricity has a right to get regular accurate bills, and not have to run around for the same. But the greater responsibility is on the service provider to run things in a consumer-oriented manner. This is the reason why we have the concept of independent arbitration such as the ombudsmen in the banking industry. For Government controlled utilities unfortunately, this is not so prevalent, and it really is not a priority for the Government to run them effectively, keeping the interests of the end-user in mind.
This is also the reason why the private sector is more efficient in most cases, given that they will certainly not let such a situation linger for so long. There is a much more effective handling of such issues, and in most cases, if the consumer is not satisfied, there is a method to either escalate the issue, or to take it to a forum like the consumer court.