Electricity meters. Telegraph picture

Patna, March 2: Patna Electricity State Undertaking (Pesu), buoyed by the success of taking meter readings through hand-held billing machines at Gardanibagh division, has decided to extend the service to Gulzarbagh division from next week.

Pesu general manager-cum-chief engineer S.K.P. Singh said the system, which was introduced on a trial basis from December last year in the Gardanibagh division, has been quite successful. A Calcutta-based private firm — MD and PGtronics Private Limited — has been outsourced the work of carrying out meter readings and distribute the bills on the spot.

Under the system, an official visits consumers’ homes with a hand-held billing machine to jot down the meter reading, generate and then deliver the bill on the spot.

Singh told The Telegraph: “The on-spot bill delivery system has been a great success and has helped in increasing revenue collection. Earlier, the revenue collection from the Gardanibagh division used to be around Rs 1.75 to Rs 1.8 crore. In February, it has soared to Rs 2.39 crore.”

Singh said Pesu had chosen Gardanibagh — the smallest division — to implement the scheme on a trial basis so that any kinks in the system could be worked out. Now, that the move has been successful, the system is being extended to the Gulzarbagh division, which generates monthly revenue of Rs 2 crore from 28,000 consumers.

The hand-held billing machines have helped in increasing revenue collection, which was not possible earlier because Pesu was working with half of its strength, said Singh.

He added the private firm, entrusted with the work, has ensured timely readings, generating and delivering the bills on the spot to every consumer with the hand-held machines.

At present, a meter reader visits houses and jots down the reading in his/her register. The data is then stored in the computer to generate bills, which is subsequently handed over to the customers. But with the introduction of the spot-billing system, the reader would go to the consumers’ house with a hand-held billing machine, feed the current reading and instantly hands over the bill to the consumer.

The hand-held billing machine, a part of supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) system, will be linked with all the 10 divisions and 30 collection centres of Pesu through the main server installed at the Scada centre.