Beware: Weary metermen can add to bill woes

KOLKATA: If you think your electricity bill is inflated, the reason could well be that the men who inspect your meters are overworked. Power utility CESC’s meter inspectors, who move from house to house checking meters and jotting down readings in ledgers, have to read about 150 meters in 60 locations on an average every day. That works out to nearly 19 meters an hour in an eight-hour shift.
The 600-odd inspectors, 80 per cent of whom are engaged in meter reading, need to collect data of 18.10 lakh meters located in 7 lakh premises before the billing cycle every month.
“The numbers may seem disparate, but in a congested urban locale it is not difficult for the staff to achieve their daily target. There are localities in central and northern Kolkata where an inspector can read 250 meters in a day.
In fact, there are several buildings with 150-200 meters in them,� CESC general manager (commercial) B.B. Bhattacharya said.
Consumers, though, are not convinced that their meters are being read correctly.
Asima Ghosh, a resident of Bhowanipore, says she has not seen the meter inspector for a while. Raja Sarkar of Bowbazar, too, felt the inspectors manipulated figures to give the impression that meters were being read.
Bhattacharya, however, denied the allegations. “Only rarely is a house not visited every month. Consumers can notify us and we will take immediate action,� he assured.
While admitting that some error is bound to creep in when such a vast amount of data is handled manually, Bhattacharya felt the inspectors get a raw deal. “There are instances when the computer data entry operator has made an incorrect entry despite a correct reading. But it’s always the inspectors who face the blame,� he said.
Despite the assurance, 5,000-odd bills are prepared each month based on “average readings�. These bills are prepared on the basis of previous bills and not actual readings.
“We have to do this when meters are defective or when access to meters are not available,� Bhattacharya explained.