Task Force to ‘punish’ employees for making inflated power bills

Power Division has formed a "Task Force" to punish the employees and officials of six power distribution agencies, those were involved in making the "inflated bill", "over bill" and to the consumers that created a serious panic and unrest among the consumers across the country.
Mosammat Maksuda Khatun, Additional Secretary, will lead the "Task Force" which has been asked to submit its report within next seven working days. However, another Additional Secretary would be engaged here to look into the issue, Power Division said.
Both these decision were taken at a meeting at Power division on Thursday chaired by State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, where all chief of the utility agencies were present.
Meanwhile, during the lockdown period, the consumers received two to five times higher bills compared to the bills of February and March. Consumers of different distribution companies received the bill as the six distribution companies - Bangladesh Power Development Company (PDB), Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (REB), West-Zone Power Distribution Company Ltd (WZPDCL), Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), North West Zone Power Distribution Company Ltd (NASCO) and Dhaka Electric Supply Company (DESCO) made the bills on average basis which changed the
    electricity consumption slabs of the consumers and created inflated bills.
However, the meeting was told that as per directives by the top officials of the distributing agencies, the junior officials prepared the inflated bills or average bill and sent those to the consumers.
"A section of officials and employees were involved here, those wanted to tarnish government image. They should be exposed and e punished," Nasrul Hamid said.
The meeting was told that NESCO (distributing power at the northern part of the country) handed over 5,000 bills to its consumers, which was 300 times more than the actual bill.
Following the meeting, State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid assured the consumers that they would not need pay the extra bill or to suffer headache for the additional bills.
"Sending additional bills to some customers was a mistake. The corrected bills will be given, if you communicate to the nearest electricity office. No one will have to pay additional bills."
However, due to these mistakes, consumers across the country are facing serious harassment in paying the bills in the month of February, March and April without late payment fee or surcharge as the utility agencies are yet to get any official order in this regard.
Palli Bidyut Samities (PBS) are the champion among the six power distributing agencies in this connection, as most of its consumers are from the rural areas and poor but the complaint of harassment is almost similar against all utility agencies.
During the meeting, Managing Directors and Chairmen of the six power distributing agencies including Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (Desco), Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited (DPDC), West Zone Power Distribution Company Limited (WZPDCL), Northern Electricity Supply Company Limited (Nesco), Bangladesh Rural Electrification begged apology for the 'inflated electricity bills, to the State Minister.
Following a 66-day nationwide shutdown, State Minister for Power and Energy on 30th May announced that "distribution companies will not impose any surcharge on electricity bill payments for the months of February, March, April and May due to coronavirus pandemic."
He also urged the consumers not to be panicked over the inflated electricity bills and assured them to resolve it soon adding that the payments of the due bills must be paid by June 30.
About the consumers' frequent allegation on inflated electricity bills in recent days, Nasrul Hamid admitted that distribution companies did make mistake in preparing bills as they had to prepare it on assumption basis due to the coronavirus situation.
"I do admit some 4-5 lakh consumers' bills had problems as they got inflated bills," he said advising them to contact the local power distribution companies to correct their bills.