Chennai: Complaints about delayed meter readings to assess electricity consumption continue to pour in from across the city and suburbs, despite repeated instructions from Tamil Nadu Power Distribution Corporation Ltd (TNPDCL) to field officers to ensure prompt assessment.Roy Rosario of Pattabiram said the assessor for his neighbourhood did not turn up for five days after the scheduled assessment period. “The reading should have been taken on Oct 5,” he said. Rosario said this will cause consumption to jump into higher tariff slabs and consumers to lose the benefit of 200 free units if they cross 500 units in a bi-monthly period.P Bharathi of Porur said that his electricity consumption was not assessed for two subsequent cycles. “The last assessment was done in June. In Aug, we did not get a bill, and the Oct assessment is due. It is unfair on the part of TNPDCL,” he said. Niranjan Kumar of Mehta Nagar said his neighbourhood faced similar problems till last month. “After we raised a complaint, a woman staffer has been temporarily posted to cover our area, but we are not sure how long she will continue,” he said.It may be noted that TNPDCL carried out the exercise of reassessing power bills that were abnormally high last month and detected wrong assessments in about 2,000 services across the state. Though TNPDCL justified the discrepancies considering they had to assess 1.3 crore meters at households in a month, it later decided to outsource the meter reading to private contractors citing a shortage of assessors.However, officials said that tenders are yet to be floated in many areas. “We have told field officers to carry out the exercise, but it may take at least a month before contractors are engaged. Meanwhile, we have instructed them to ensure prompt assessment,” said a senior official.
