Power shocker: A Rs 14 lakh bill exposes MSEDCL functioning

Meter-reading agency, MSEDCL officials under scanner.

AFTER the state power utility Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) served a whopping bill of Rs 14 lakh to a family living in Kalewadi area of Pimpri-Chinchwad, it has exposed the way the power utility functions — drilling loss to its own coffers.

Pandurang Gade’s family living in Kalewadi received a bill of Rs 14 lakh in the month of July. Gade approached MSEDCL, expressing his shock at the huge bill he was served. “We are living in darkness for the past one month as the MSEDCL, which sent us a Rs 14 lakh bill, has severed our power connection,” said Gade, adding that he had approached the MSEDCL but to no avail.

MSEDCL officials, however, refuted the charges and justified the action taken in the matter. The power utility said they had launched a probe into the issue and found that Gade was getting an average bill for power used by him and seven of his tenants. “The meter-reading agency did not do its job properly. For five years, the actual reading was not taken, the bill was served on the basis of average reading. The owner was living there and so were his tenants. It was found that power usage was very high, but they were being billed on a low scale.” said MSEDCL officials. “Generally, average bill is given for three-four months, then corrective action like repairing or replacing the meter is done. But in this case, average billing went on for very long, for five years.”
MSEDCL was in for a rude shock The MSEDCL probe also found that its officials had provided another power connection to Gade after he refused to pay the the earlier bill of Rs 14 lakh. “The name of the consumer is different, but the spot where the power connection has been taken is the same. It was traced to the same consumer,” said MSEDCL officials.

MSEDCL spokesperson Nishakant Raut said the bill of Gade has been corrected to Rs 10 lakh. “Before his power connection was severed, we had given him enough time to pay the bill. Even now, we have told him to pay the bill in installments,” he said.

A senior MSEDCL official said the power utility will take action against the meter-reading agency as it was found that they gave only an average bill to the consumer. “MSEDCL will act against its own officials who gave another connection to the consumer though his earlier connection was severed due to non-payment of bill,” officials said. MSEDCL officials said they are also finding out whether other consumers were also given similar bills.

S Gumatkar, a resident of Kasarwadi, said,”On Thursday, MSEDCL personnel visited several houses and severed their connection if they had not paid their bill of only Rs 1,000. In this case, it was in for a shock when Rs 14 lakh was not billed to the consumer. MSEDCL should set its house in order first, it will find more skeletons in its cupboards.”

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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