When I received my bill, with a reading taken on March 4, I was shocked to see that it was 19,594 units!
ISLAMABAD: While I am very appreciative of the government’s genuine efforts to hold power thieves accountable, it should also consider punishing those employees of power distribution and generation companies, who are involved in deliberately making up figures for electricity use. I will give my own example as a case in point. Being a retired government servant, I am careful about the consumption of electricity in my house. For this purpose, I make it a point to check the meter every three or four days. As it happened, the meter reading, when checked on March 12 was 19,420 units. When I received my bill, with a reading taken on March 4, I was shocked to see that it was 19,594 units! If one were to believe the reading on the bill that would mean that from March 4 to March 12, the reading on my house’s electricity meter actually went in reverse, by 174 units!
As it works out, I was being billed for nearly 300 extra units. This caused much worry and panic as expected and I tried to contact the government employees concerned but nobody would even answer their phone. The next day I sent an SMS to the SDO saying that if he did not respond, I would lodge a complaint. That made him at least call me and he took down the relevant details from me and promised to take necessary remedial measures. Nothing happened, however.
It was then that I called up the ministry’s complaint cell. I spoke to an officer who was very polite and patient. While I was on hold, he talked to a couple of people and assured me that I would be contacted and the issue resolved. This was about two days back. In the meantime, nothing transpired. So I called the complaint cell again this morning. The same official whom I had spoken to the first time was not there and someone else answered the phone. This man was equally polite, though not very patient. Nevertheless, he also talked to some people and then, to my disbelief, he told me that nothing could be done because during the current month, all consumers of IESCO were sent bills on an average billing basis. This appeared ridiculous and illogical to me, given that the power company could have easily gauged the actual consumption at my house by having the meter read accurately. I am now writing this in the form of a letter to a newspaper and hope that IESCO will take note of it and reverse the charges.
Ghafir A Pirzada
Published in The Express Tribune, March 24th, 2014.
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