Bengaluru: Bescom has actually not obtained any kind of applications in the last 4 years under the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020, which secure the legal rights of electrical energy customers and equip them to declare payment for hold-up and shortage in solutions.
While the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) mounted the needed standards and guidelines, it was the duty of the electrical energy supply business to develop understanding amongst individuals.
“We held public consultations and laid out clearly the standards of performance to be followed by Escoms. There are many conditions laid out and the compensation that can be claimed has also been fixed under close to 17 categories,” an elderly KERC authorities described.
The guidelines enable customers to declare payment for breaching criteria of efficiency under numerous classifications like variety of disruptions in supply past established limitation; time considered link, interference, reconnection, moving; time considered modification in customer classification, lots; time required to deal with payment problems, and time required to deal with voltage associated problems.
Consumer legal rights protestors state with the exception of paper alerts, Bescom has actually taken little action to get the word out.
“We conducted a survey of nearly 3,000 people in the state and it was clear that nearly 90% of them had no awareness about this. Escoms had to conduct awareness campaigns and release a booklet with detailed procedure to apply for compensation and the grounds on which it can be applied. However, no such effort has been made,” stated Muralidharan Y G, customer protestor operating in the location of electrical energy administration.
He stated Escoms likewise fell short to present remote surveillance and payment analysis systems.
“The software has to be upgraded in such a way that delay in processing services should be remotely monitored and compensation automatically calculated. For instance, the system will record date on which an application for power connection was received. If the application has not been processed with the set number of days, the software should automatically award compensation. But none of these systemic changes have been made,” Muralidharan stated.
While understanding amongst individuals is reduced, numerous Bescom authorities themselves were unaware regarding these guidelines.
“It is a specific guideline and only departments handling it may know,” one them stated.
Published 08 September 2024, 19:13 IST
