Patna, Nov. 26: Waiting for the meter reader to come to your home or for the electricity bill to be delivered to your home well in advance of the due date will soon be a thing of the past.

The Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) has decided to outsource the job of meter readings and issuance of bills to a private agency. The decision has been taken to ensure a system of timely and correct meter readings and issuing bills well in advance. Several consumers in the capital complain neither do meter readers come on a particular day in the month nor do they get their bills before two to three days of the last day of payment.

Pesu general manager S.K.P. Singh told The Telegraph: “We have already taken steps to stem the problems in the current system of meter reading and bill distribution. A decision has been taken to outsource the job to a private agency so that the consumers are not hassled on these two counts. I think this decision will address the problem at large.”

Singh said a Calcutta-based firm MD and PGtronics Pvt Ltd has been entrusted with the job to carry out metre readings and issuance of the electric bills to the consumers with effect from December 1. He added the decision to outsource the job to the private firm had been taken much earlier. However, the decision was not implemented because of the model code of conduct being in force.

The consumers in the capital are a harried lot because unlike the case of telephone bills, the electricity department does not have a fixed bill date. As a result, consumers never receive the electricity bills on a particular day or even on time.

Singh said the whole system is in a complete mess as the employees either do not go to the consumers’ house to take the meter readings or they do not deliver the bills before two or three days before the due date of making the payments.

“We are working with just 50 per cent of our employees. These employees are entrusted with the work of both reading the metre and distributing the bills to the consumers. As a result of the employee crunch the consumers have to face many problems. The private firm has been entrusted the work to get rid of these hurdles. The agency would be paid on the basis of the number of consumers they would be deal with,” Singh said.

Singh said the increase in the numbers of consumers have also been a reason behind the problems of the consumers. The number of consumers has swelled from 2 lakh in 2003-2004 to more than 3.25 lakh in 2010-2011.

However, several consumers also complain that apart from receiving the bills late, they are often charged for more units than they have actually consumed. Anil Kumar Pramod, a resident of Kesri Nagar, has faced a similar situation. He said: “We never know when the meter reader is supposed to come. Moreover, I read the meter on a daily basis and I can confidently say the department distributes inflated meter readings. After that, we get the bills barely a day or two before the due date of payment.”

Manoj Kumar Singh, a resident of Kankerbagh, said: “The reader does not even come to my house and prepares the bill sitting at the office. And after all this, I don’t even receive the bill on time to make the payment.”