Guwahati, Nov. 3: If you are living in a flat here with pre-paid electricity connection, you no longer have to stand in queues for recharge vouchers.

The Assam Power Distribution Company Ltd (APDCL) has recently started a facility for online recharge, enabling pre-paid consumers here to recharge by a few clicks of their computer’s mouse. The deputy general manager (DGM) of Guwahati Electrical Circle-I, Dulal Saikia, told The Telegraph that the APDCL became the country’s second public sector power company to introduce the online recharge facility after the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation.

“All a pre-paid consumer now has to do is just log on to our website and follow the commands for online recharge like they do while shopping online. They can do recharge using their credit or debit cards too. Once a consumer makes the online payment, he or she will get a 20-digit number and a receipt voucher in his email. The consumer can also use the voucher as his or her address proofs. We have already started the facility and many consumers are going for online recharge sitting in their homes. At the same time, they can do the same at our customer care centres,” Saikia said.

In December last year, the APDCL had made pre-paid meters mandatory for new flats in Guwahati. The power company had introduced the pre-paid metering system in 2008 and over 3,500 consumers have already been using pre-paid meters. Apart from domestic consumers, pre-paid meters are also provided for commercial uses like shops and offices in Guwahati. Saikia said the pre-paid metering has been done to encourage people not to waste electricity and be economical as the state was running short of electricity against the increasing consumer demand.

A pre-paid meter contains a monitor where the consumer can check his or her power consumption and the monitor will give a warning to show consumption limit and the time to go for recharge.

“We give maximum of 48 hours for recharge even after the expiry of the limit. We extend the time limit if the deadline after the warning is a Sunday or a holiday. If they do not go for recharge within the extended time, power supply will get disconnected automatically. Connection will be re-activated once they go for recharge,” another APDCL officer said.

“For starters, a pre-paid consumer will have to pay Rs 4,500 and another Rs 1,000 for initial recharge. Later, he can go for recharge vouchers starting from Rs 200 to as much as he requires,” the official said.

The official said many flat owners were still going for post-paid connections although pre-paid meters for them were mandatory.