Punjab electricity consumers complain of inflated bills as ‘hurried’ software change triggers glitches

As per information available from the PSPCL office, the SBS rollout took place in December last year, during which migration of consumer accounts from SAP to CCB under the SBS also commenced. However, electricity bills issued in February under the new software system have disturbed a large number of consumers across multiple zones.

“The power bills are being sent for 80–100 days at one go instead of 60 days. Moreover, many consumers are being given bills on an average basis. Energy consumption data from the last six months is being deleted and previous consumption is being added in many cases, leading to inflated bills. In the past, outsourced meter readers were also on strike. This is another reason for sending average or provisional bills,” said Ratan Singh Majri, convener of PSEB Employees Federation.

Lack of timely rectification

Consumer distress has been further aggravated by the lack of timely rectification. “A bill worth thousands of rupees in winters sounds strange; not all can run around the PSPCL offices to get them rectified. Many consumers are making videos of their meters and producing them before the PSPCL staff to tell them the exact meter reading. Many are getting them rectified, while many others are still running from pillar to post. This is adding to the workload of PSPCL staff as well. The Government shouldn’t have introduced the new software in a hush-hush manner when they were not even prepared for it,” said Gurpreet Singh Gandiwind, another convenor of the PSEB Employees Federation.

The CCB-based billing under SBS has been implemented in the South Zone, including Mohali, Patiala, Ropar, and Barnala, as well as in the Border Zone, covering Amritsar, Gurdaspur, and Tarn Taran. Bills have also been issued under the new system in the Sirhind and Sangrur areas.

During the migration period under the SBS, bill corrections were reportedly not carried out till January 31. Fearing penalties, many consumers paid the disputed bills after being informed that any excess amount would be adjusted later.

Operational difficulties for backend staff

Issues are not limited to consumers alone. Sources said that PSPCL’s backend staff were also facing operational difficulties under the SBS system. The list of defaulters is reportedly incomplete, checking GST collection at the sub-division level has become difficult, and the CCB system is yet to be integrated with the PM Surya portal. Applications for new solar connections under CCB cannot be processed, along with several other shortcomings that are affecting revenue collection and system efficiency.

Addressing the concerns, Sukhwinder Singh, Chief Engineer (IT), PSPCL head office, Patiala, told The Indian Express, “We have a consumer base of about 1.2 crores and nearly 55 lakhs have been migrated from SAP to CCB under the SBS system, and the rest will be done in the coming days. Whenever we change from one system to another, we do face some hassles due to adaptation issues. SAP is German-based technology and SBS is US-based technology. So there are a few transitional hiccups, which are being resolved. Otherwise, the entire data is being transferred from SAP to SBS.”

He added, “Consumers got bills on an average basis as meter readers were on strike. They returned to work about ten days ago only. So any inflated bill is being resolved. Consumers need not worry.”

According to PSPCL authorities, the earlier SAP-based billing system was an on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that required significant infrastructure and multiple integrations. To modernise billing operations, PSPCL shifted to the Oracle cloud-based SBS, a software-as-a-service platform offering scalability and centralised billing. The SBS was commissioned in late December 2025, with SAP being fully decommissioned thereafter, though the stabilisation of the new system remains ongoing.