Bescom engineers could face fine for ignoring plaints

BENGALURU: Senior engineers at Bescom and other power distribution utilities in Karnataka will have to pay up to Rs 1 lakh in penalty if they fail to hold consumer interaction events once in three months.

The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC), in its tariff order announced on Tuesday, has added this additional warning following consumer complaints that the utilities were not conducting consumer interaction meetings regularly. Superintending engineers at Bescom and other four electricity supply companies (Escoms) will have to pay hefty penalty if they fail to ensure these meetings at every sub-division once every three months. The mandate to hold such meets could bring relief to consumers at a time when Bescom is facing pendency of several thousand complaints. In March alone, the utility received 1.84 lakh complaints, averaging about 8,300 complaints on any given day .

B.PAC chief executive Revathy Ashok hailed the regulator's decision. “Consumers shouldn't be at the raw end of the stick by not get ting either service or redressal,“ she said. She also added that the meetings should become a plat form for consumers to provide ideas to make the energy sector more competitive, besides focuseing on grievance redressal. Bescom has 119 sub-divisions, covering 1.03 crore consumers across r eight districts.


In fact, Bescom started holding consumer interaction meetings from 2012 based on an earlier KERC directive. “It is happening monthly at every sub-division,“ Bescom managing director P Rajendra Cholan maintained. However, data show that only 126 consumers in the Bengaluru metropolitan area attended meetings held between August and November last year. “The real issue is that consumers are not aware of these meetings. Steps will be taken to publicise them. Also, proceedings of each subdivisional meeting will be uploaded on our website," Cholan said.

KERC expects the utility to show compliance through quarterly reports indicating the date, number of consumers who attended and the status of redressal of their complaints.

“It's a clear indication from the KERC that Bescom will have to face the music if it doesn't deliver. After all, Bescom is a service provider and there cannot be any compromise in service delivery," Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry president MC Dinesh said.