close
Thursday March 28, 2024

Over billing in Mepco hikes to Rs5.5 billion

By Khalid Mustafa
November 10, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Many power distribution companies (Discos) are involved in overbilling as in Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) alone overbilling has gone up to Rs5.50 billion.

One of the top men in the Power Division told The News the consumers of the Mepco have paid the mammoth amount of Rs5.50 billion in the head of overbilling. Likewise all the Discos are involved in the overbilling.

In a year, there are 12 months, but the electricity consumers pay almost for 14 months in one year in the form of overbilling.

However, the spokesman of Mepco denies any overbilling to the consumers, but the top man of the Power Division showing the document to The News unfolds the overbilling done by Mepco stands at Rs5.50 billion.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Awais Laghari told The News that he is determined to do away with the overbilling and to this effect he needs the cooperation from the media. When asked about overbilling of Rs5.50 billion done by Mepco, the minister avoided the
question, saying that Discos have been asked not to indulge anymore in overbilling and added: “We have got approved the amendment in the Nepra Act from the NA committee on power which will soon be tabled in Parliament for making it part of Nepra Act.”

The amendment in the Nepra Act stipulates three-year imprisonment for overbilling and wrong billing by the Discos’ officials from electricity consumers.”For the first time overbilling has been declared as crime.”

Top functionaries of some Discos that include Lesco, Fesco, Mepco, Gepco and Iesco told The News on the condition of anonymity that the entities were under tremendous pressure by top mandarins of ministries of Water and Power and Finance to collect maximum revenue to show the performance in terms of improving the revenue and reducing the circular debt and that is why they adopted a modus operandi under which masses are subjected to overbilling. 

It is pertinent to note that National Electric Power regulatory Authority (Nepra) in its annual report 2014-15 had revealed that the Discos had not only subjected the countrymen to the fake power outages but also to the massive overbilling.

In that report in 2015, Nepra had also mentioned that 70 percent of ToU (time of use) meters in eight distribution companies were either outdated or out-timed resulting in sending of either peak or off-peak billing wrongly. However, the then Ministry of Water and Power did not believe in the Nepra’s report.

Dr Mussadiq Malik, the then Special Assistant to PM on Water and Power, had
 submitted its report on overbilling that had hit countrymen in August 2014. And
according to that particular report, Discos had fleeced billions of rupees from the electricity consumers by overcharging them in the month of August.

The then Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan in that cabinet meeting had also raised the issue of inflated bills that the consumers were receiving. The then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in that particular meeting had tasked Dr Mussadiq Malik to probe the matter and submit the report to him.

Dr Mussadiq Malik as per the direction of the prime minister had randomly probed the electricity bills of 150,000 consumers and found that meter readers of some Discos did not discharge their responsibility of reading the meters of 35 percent consumers and sent them electricity bills without reading their meters.

Discos, the report said, had sent consumers the electricity bills based on estimates exposing them to huge surge in their electricity bills forcing them to pay the cost for electricity they did not use.

Laghari said that unfortunately the ugly practice of exposing the consumers to inflated bills is still underway and there is still a long way to go and he expressed the resolve to erase the overbilling at any cost.