Vashi residents complain against rising electricity bills despite meters not functioning

Navi Mumbai residents continue to voice their grievances with the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) over its alleged failure to provide services against the steep bills being levied.

Residents are also seeking answers from MSEDCL on how bills are levied even as the meters of many of them are no longer functioning.

According to consumers, in most parts of the city, meter reading is not being done as most of the meters don’t display the units consumed.

“In my society, there are many meters that have long stopped working. Even the few that are functioning, their calibration is extremely doubtful because these are almost 25 years old and have never once been serviced by MSEDCL,” said Vashi Sector 9 resident, Rohit Malhotra, 50.

The resident has even addressed a letter to MSEDCL seeking reasons for not providing the basic service of maintaining the meters. The residents’ ire has also to do with MSEDCL recently issuing supplementary bills seeking additional security deposit.

“On the one hand, MSEDCL is very prompt in seeking additional security deposit in the event of consumers failing to pay. But, when it comes to at least providing functional meters, it has only excuses. There are families of just people who were earlier receiving bills in the range of ₹1,000- ₹1,500 whereas now they are being asked to pay average bills of ₹4,000 only because their meter is not functioning,” Malhotra added.

R Mane, superintendent engineer, Vashi division, said that he’d look into the issue at the earliest. “Of the 10 lakh-odd consumers in Vashi division, there could be a few whose meters are faulty but that doesn’t mean that the bill generation is not correct. There is a system followed while issuing the bill in case of no meter reading. Nevertheless, we will be looking into the grievances,” said Mane.