Gurgaon: For 2.2 lakh electricity consumers in south Haryana, the monthly power bill is still not necessarily based on what their meter actually recorded. DHBVN’s latest review shows that 2,23,730 average and provisional billing cases remained unresolved as of Aug 31, despite the discom’s efforts to clear the backlog — prompting managing director Vikram Singh to direct all superintending engineers to personally review every pending case and ensure time-bound disposal.“For nearly 5% of DHBVN’s 45 lakh consumers, the electricity bill is still being generated without a reliable meter reading,” said an officer.Of 2,41,604 cases taken up for action, DHBVN has so far disposed of only 17,874 — leaving more than 92% of the original cases still unresolved. The backlog is also not falling fast enough, as new defective-meter and faulty-reading cases keep getting added with every billing cycle. “This number is not coming down,” Singh acknowledged.The problem is most acute in Hisar zone, which has 1,14,077 pending cases, compared with 1,09,653 in Delhi zone, which covers Gurgaon, Faridabad and adjoining areas. Within the district itself, Gurgaon-1 accounts for 14,399 pending cases and Gurgaon-2 another 11,361 — a combined 25,760.Around 80,000 of the total cases relate to defective meters that need replacement; the remaining cases require site inspections and correction of billing based on the findings. This means a substantial part of the problem is not simply a billing-software issue but a last-mile failure involving meter replacement, field inspection and updating of consumer accounts.An average or provisional bill is meant to be only an interim arrangement, with the actual account reconciled once the meter is replaced, checked or site verification is completed. Haryana’s Supply Code restricts provisional billing to two billing cycles where a meter cannot be read, and requires a defective meter to be replaced within a prescribed timeline once it is established as defective.“A consumer may either end up paying more than actual consumption or face a later adjustment when the account is finally reconciled. Haryana’s electricity supply regulations provide for provisional billing when a meter cannot be read, but such billing is not intended to become a long-term substitute for actual meter-based billing,” the officer said.The regulatory record shows why prolonged provisional billing can become a consumer grievance. In one Haryana case, a consumer’s meter replacement was followed by a delay of nearly a year in updating the replacement in the system, during which bills continued to be generated on average basis. Right to Service Commission awarded compensation in the case, observing that the delay had caused undue harassment to the consumer.Singh has now told superintending engineers to go beyond merely recording daily disposal figures — they have been asked to identify the actual cause of each pending case, fix accountability and ensure consumer billing grievances are resolved within a definite timeframe. MD will also review other billing parameters, including delayed billing of new and solar connections, closed billing cases, high-bill complaints, pending metering and billing complaints, and CM-window grievances.
