Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 24: The consumers in various areas of Jammu region have appealed the Power Development Department (PDD) to send the monthly bills to them on the basis of recorded meterreadings.
The consumers said that the PDD authorities are submitting the monthly tariff bills on basis of assumption and not recording the actual reading on meters. This practice has been started for last many months and consumers are worried as such a practice will disturb their monthly budget as most of consumers belonging to middle class and lower middle class families will be put to problems this way in future when bills on the basis of actual metre reading will be sent to them and they had to pay the same in one go.
By submitting the power tariff bills on the basis of assumption will put the people to grave problem as those consumers who might have consumed less electricity as per reading might have been handed over higher bills while those whose consumption would be more might have been given less bills tentatively and at last they will be asked to clear the arrears while checking the metre reading. This way the poor consumers will be put to problems in paying the arrears in a one go. Hence they appealed the PDD authorities to issue directives to their field staff to check metre readings of the consumers on monthly basis and submit bills accordingly.
One consumer said that he was given bills tentatively not exceeding Rs 300 or 400 per month without taking the metre reading for months together and later a bill of Rs 10,000 was slapped on him which he was asked to pay in a single instalment. This is a harassment to poor consumers, he said, adding the Department should look into the issue and ask the field staff to take metre readings on monthly basis and frame bills accordingly.
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