Chennai: Electricity bills are bound to be on the higher side this month for all consumers, with TNPDCL recording a 15% jump in electricity consumption in Aug, compared to the same period last year.In Aug 2025, the state consumed 11,514.86 million units (MU) of electricity, whereas the consumption rose to 13,248.82MU this Aug. The year-on-year growth was two percentage points higher than in July, when consumption had increased 13% compared with July 2025. Also, lowest per-day consumption itself was 380MU this Aug, which is 20% higher compared to last Aug’s 315.68MU. And with 459MU, the maximum per-day consumption too has recorded a 7% jump.TNPDCL officials said that power consumption has grown at 6% every year in the past, but this year has seen an unprecedented surge in electricity demand crossing 10% during the peak of summer. “As the weather continues to be hot and sultry due to poor southwest monsoon, power consumption continues to be high,” said an official. About 1.3 crore domestic consumers who fall in the July-Aug billing cycle may end up shelling out the same amount they paid for consumption during peak summer months depending on their actual electricity consumption.To minimise the confusion and public ire over high bills, TNPDCL has made arrangements to prevent inflated consumption charges due to misreading of electricity meters. “Domestic services who have consumed more than 500 units in July and Aug have been separately categorised. If their bill for Sept or Oct is 20% higher than their previous bills, the software will flag such services for re-verification and prevent assessors from raising the bills. Officers concerned will verify the consumption again. If the reading was wrong, it will be corrected immediately and if consumption charges were correctly entered, they will be uploaded in the software to generate the bill,” said TNDPCL officials.Residents, however, said the problem lies in delayed meter reading. “For the past few billing cycles, assessors haven’t visited houses to read the meters, as the post remains vacant. We inform the assessor about our consumption over calls to get our power bills,” said Niranjankumar, of Aminjikarai.President of TNPDCL Assessors Union, Kannan, said that the number of assessors has dwindled to 1,500 against the sanctioned strength. “Assessors and revenue inspectors indulge in meter reading and bill collection. Carrying out re-inspection is an additional burden,” he said and blamed outsourced workers and non-cooperative consumers for inflated power bills.C Selvaraj, a retired engineer from TNEB, said, it does not make sense to compare consumption patterns of subsequent months. “The exercise should compare consumption in the corresponding months of previous years,” he said.
