Following grievances from customers regarding the hike in electricity bills, the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) on Sunday clarified that smart prepaid meters do not lead to an increase in electricity charges.
The APDCL authorities stated that smart meters provide details on daily electricity consumption to encourage consumers to use electricity judiciously as per needs resulting in savings of energy.
Informing this through Twitter, the APDCL said, “This is to clarify that prepaid smart meters doesn't lead to increase in electricity bills. Rather, these meters provide insights on daily consumption to encourage consumers to use electricity judiciously as per needs resulting in savings of energy. As a part of Govt. of India’s RDSS Scheme, smart prepaid meters are being installed throughout the country including Assam.”
The APDCL further said, “In case of smart prepaid meters, no extra charge is levied and existing tariff rates are applicable. However, in order to allay the concern of the consumers, we have made provision to install check meters alongside the smart meter to compare consumption of both meters.”
The power distribution company advised consumers to install check meters alongside the smart meter by contacting their concerned sub-division offices.
On the other hand, consumers can also monitor their daily electricity consumption by installing the mobile app ‘myBijulee’ and bring any discrepancy in consumption to the APDCL’s notice.
“Moreover, in order to give relief to the consumers, we have facilitated payment of the last month’s postpaid bill on a daily installment basis once the connection is converted to prepaid. However, if any consumer has any query or confusion regarding the postpaid to prepaid conversion process, they can call at our helpline number 1912 or raise their query through http://apdcl.org or myBijulee App or through our social media handle tagging @apdclsocial,” they further tweeted.
