Chittagong Bureau :
For the last several months, Alam Khorshed has been paying Tk 3,000 to Tk 4,000 as monthly electricity bill for his ‘art centre’ located at port city’s Mehedibagh area. But he felt bewildered when he received the bill for December 2016 – it was a whopping Tk 22,000.
Sensing ‘a mess-up in the billing system,’ he rushed to the power distribution centre next to MA Aziz Stadium and saw many other ‘victims’ like him came to file the complaint about the ‘ghost bills’.”My art complex uses maximum six energy-saving bulbs, three fans and a computer. I can’t understand how those electrical items consumed Tk 22,000 of electricity in a month. I’ve filed a complaint. Let’s see what happens next,” Alam told media persons.
Consumer Rafiqul Islam from Pathantuli has the same problem. He said he pays Tk 600 to Tk 700 for electricity a month, but the bill for December came out to be of Tk 1,281.
Thousands of consumers like Alam and Rafiqul queue at the 21 distribution centres in the port city every day with complaints of ‘exorbitant’ bills Felt harassed, they alleged that the “Power Development Board (PDB) people are making the bills without checking the metres” The board has also admitted that it cannot check all the metres due to lack of workforce.
Chittagong PDB Chief Engineer Mrinal Kanti Das said the lack of metre readers might lead 20 percent discrepancies in bills either way – it may go up or below the actual amount Metre readers were appointed for the last time in 1995, he said”. The number of consumers rose by 10 percent annually on an average since then, but the number of metre readers remained the same,” he said.
For the last several months, Alam Khorshed has been paying Tk 3,000 to Tk 4,000 as monthly electricity bill for his ‘art centre’ located at port city’s Mehedibagh area. But he felt bewildered when he received the bill for December 2016 – it was a whopping Tk 22,000.
Sensing ‘a mess-up in the billing system,’ he rushed to the power distribution centre next to MA Aziz Stadium and saw many other ‘victims’ like him came to file the complaint about the ‘ghost bills’.”My art complex uses maximum six energy-saving bulbs, three fans and a computer. I can’t understand how those electrical items consumed Tk 22,000 of electricity in a month. I’ve filed a complaint. Let’s see what happens next,” Alam told media persons.
Consumer Rafiqul Islam from Pathantuli has the same problem. He said he pays Tk 600 to Tk 700 for electricity a month, but the bill for December came out to be of Tk 1,281.
Thousands of consumers like Alam and Rafiqul queue at the 21 distribution centres in the port city every day with complaints of ‘exorbitant’ bills Felt harassed, they alleged that the “Power Development Board (PDB) people are making the bills without checking the metres” The board has also admitted that it cannot check all the metres due to lack of workforce.
Chittagong PDB Chief Engineer Mrinal Kanti Das said the lack of metre readers might lead 20 percent discrepancies in bills either way – it may go up or below the actual amount Metre readers were appointed for the last time in 1995, he said”. The number of consumers rose by 10 percent annually on an average since then, but the number of metre readers remained the same,” he said.
