Electric meters. Telegraph picture

Patna, Oct. 12: Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) has extended on-the-spot billing through hand-held billing machine in its seven out of 10 divisions, but the service has failed to ensure delivery of bills on time to consumers.

Under the new system, a meter reader from the electricity department arrives at the consumer’s home with a hand-held billing machine, jots down the reading and generates the bill instantly.

Consumers under the service now get bills at intervals of one-and-a-half month or two months causing inconvenience in maintaining their monthly budget.

When The Telegraph asked Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer SKP Singh for comment regarding consumers not getting timely bills even in divisions where the service has been in use for the past five-six months, Singh admitted that the bills are being distributed among consumers at intervals of one-and-a-half month.

Attributing the delays to untrained employees involved in meter readings, Singh said: “Things would be streamlined in the next few months as people would start getting bills at an interval of 30 to 35 days.”

“It is quite obvious that consumers would get the accumulated bill for two or three months when the service is being implemented for the first time in a particular area but after the second and third bills, things would stabilise,” Singh said adding: “Now, people will not complain about the genuineness of the bills as it will be generated before them. Besides, they would get at least 15 days time for depositing the amount.”

However, consumers, who had earlier expressed happiness over the introduction of the service, are now a harried lot as they have to wait for over one-and-a-half month or two months.

“After implementation of the service, we get at least 15 days time to deposit the amount unlike the past when we used to get two to three days. Now the problem is that we are not getting the bills on time,” said Amitesh Mani Singh, a resident of Ashiana Nagar.

Vijay Prasad, a resident of New Patliputra, echoed similar sentiments and said: “We don’t know when the meter reader arrives and leaves. We wait for the reader after the completion of 30 days of the cycle.”

Another consumer, Ajay Kumar of Gardanibagh locality said: “Our monthly household budget goes haywire when we receive the bill for two months. If it was distributed every month, it would have eased the pressure on our monthly budget.”