Excerpt from CG+, reported by Vibha Singh on 11 Sep 2009: Read Full Article
S Ganesan, resident of Pestomsagar, has been creating awareness among the residents about the importance of reading their electricity bills. Meanwhile, he felt sure that the inflated bills received by the residents were due to the manipulated new electric meters installed by Reliance. Residents were not able to prove it because it was not possible to keep a tab on the consumption pattern and meter reading in a house.
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Says Ganesan, “I was sure that the meters were being tampered but was not having proof to prove the accusation. I have a separate meter for my garage which is used only for parking my car. I purchased the garage from the society in 1996 and also bought a separate meter in my name. At that time BSES gave me the electric supply and classified the garage as non-commercial consumption unit.
The garage light was used only once or twice in a month when I parked my car at night. The consumption for a whole month was hardly two or three units per month and I always paid the minimum of Rs 30 per month. This continued for nearly 12 years that is from 1997 to March 2009.”
“In March 2009 Reliance Energy changed the meters and I started keeping a watch on the new meter. To my surprise I found that the unit consumption had partially increased to 7 in March and shot up to 16 units in the month of April and 15 in May — and in all these months I had not used the garage lights at all,” he said.
In June, Ganesan’s bill jumped three units everyday without even using the garage lights. When finally the reading touched 49 he switched off the mains inside the garage and the meter reading stopped. Explains Ganesan, “I could find out the increase in the meter reading as it was in the garage but a domestic user cannot afford this experiment and continues paying the inflated without discovering the mischief.”
