The UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) has issued a show cause notice to Lucknow Electricity Regulatory Authority (Lesa) chief engineer, Shamim Ahmad, for not being sensitive towards consumers who could not pay their bills because of repeated tripping of online server.
Ahmad, instead, in a reply sent to UPERC said consumers need to furnish details of the attempts to make payment of their electricity bills. The commission, however, viewed this as a matter of serious concern since no such arrangements were put in place at the billing stations for the consumers.
The commission, in its notice, asked Ahmad why no action be initiated against him under section 142 of the Electricity Act under which fine is slapped. "From your reply, it is obvious that consumers have not been properly facilitated for making payments after failure of the server. In spite of this, the due date was not extended, nor any proper/adequate alternative arrangements were made to make payments," the notice issued by commission secretary A K Srivastava said. On the contrary, the onus was put on consumers to furnish proof of the efforts made for payment, whereas, no arrangement for recording the attendance of consumers coming to pay their bills, was made by Lesa.
Terming it a "casual" attitude on the part of Lesa, the commission observed that relief could have been provided by a general order and specific proof was not required for consumers.
Online billing has gone for a toss following repeated tripping of the Lesa server. This eventually delayed the bill payment for consumers who were, ironically, slapped with a fine. In fact, there were also reports of Lesa not providing detailed bills to consumers. Even online payment facility using the Internet remained affected.
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