Rohtas power consumers upset with ‘arbitrary’ bills

SASARAM: Consumers of South Bihar Power Distribution Company in the district are a harried lot as raiding parties are allegedly raising arbitrary bills and lodging FIRs of power theft which are later settled at almost half the amount.
Power consumers in the district alleged that hundreds of FIRs have been lodged with different police stations on the basis of inflated bills which are settled at the time of reassessment.
A consumer of Fazalganj locality of the town said an FIR was lodged against him in the last week of March for power theft worth Rs 1.20 lakh and when he appealed for reassessment, senior officials settled it for Rs 72,000. Another consumer alleged that early this month, a power theft case was lodged against him by a raiding party for Rs 52,000, but was later settled at half the amount.
Executive engineer of the power distribution company at Sasaram, Parbhat Kumar Ranjan, admitted that on the representation of the accused consumers, the company makes reassessment and issues corrected bills. “At the time of lodging FIR of power theft, the raiding party assesses an estimate depending on estimated load, but the amount comes down when it is assessed by engineers. There is nothing wrong because the raiding team makes just a preliminary assessment and raises the bill to prevent power theft,” he said.
On the allegation of consumers that they are not given adequate time to represent their case, the executive engineer accepted the shortcoming on the part of the local engineers. “After lodging of FIR for power theft, accused consumers should be issued notice in writing to raise objection, if any, on the amount mentioned in the FIR within one month. We have come to know that this not followed properly. We are taking steps to address the problem,” he said.
Sources in the power distribution company said not a single notice has been issued to the accused consumers in the last two years.
Parmod Kumar Singh, who runs a legal aid centre here, termed the reassessment an act of interference in police investigation. “Once FIR is lodged, the police should investigate and take action. The power company does reassessment only to put pressure on consumers to get whatever payment possible which is not correct,” said Singh.
Rohtas SP M S Dhillon said if the affected consumers lodge complaint, prosecution report would be submitted to the court seeking action against the erring officers of the power company,” said the SP.