Monthly payment of electricity bills in Jaipur a must from April

Jaipur: As per new orders, consumers will have to pay their electricity bills in Jaipur and the rest of Rajasthan every month. This will be applicable from April next year.

The Electricity Regulatory Commission has given this directive to the three electricity companies of the state as per a tariff petition filed about nine months ago. According to the instructions, the power companies will have to implement this order from April 1 next year. At present, consumers have to pay electricity bills once in two months. Since this time there was no proposal to increase the rate of electricity, the consumers will not bear the burden of paying a large amount every two months.

On the other hand, small-scale consumers will also benefit due to the payment of the bill in one month instead of two. Since the consumer forms a small slab of electricity consumption, the rate of electricity per month is also low. While calculating for two months, the electricity consumption doubles and accordingly the tariff slab also increases. Companies have been claiming to count the consumption in the two months’ bills in the same month, but in some cases, mistakes were observed.

So far, the consumer who pays the bill 7 days prior to the last date is given a discount of 0.15% in the next bill. This will also change as a payment made 10 days prior to the last date will be entitled to a discount of 0.35%. Similarly, to encourage large industrial units to consume more power from Discom, more than 50% load factor will be charged at 15 paise per unit.

The department has considered the metering, billing and revenue collection as the backbone of the Discom hence there will be greater emphasis on its automation and improvement. Instructions have been given for ensuring accurate meter readings, sending information about electricity bills by SMS, publication of bills on the website, and encouraging online payment of bills to help consumers.