Gurugram: New billing system to delink power bills from backup and upkeep fees
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GURUGRAM: Power discom Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has rolled out “unified billing” for single-point, multiple user electricity connections in the city’s group housing societies that will allow it to generate separate bills for each flat, replacing the current system of a single bill beng generated for the whole society.
There are 502 single-point connections in Gurugram, which are for townships, condominiums and colonies.
Under single-point connections, DHBVN prepares one bill for the entire society, the developer or the RWA then prepares individual bills for the flats, clubbing backup and upkeep charges with the same. This system will cease to exist once individual bills start getting generated.
The new unified billing system, according to officials, will ensure residents pay a separate bill for actual power consumption as per the stipulated tariff and also prevent builders or RWAs from overcharging residents for electricity in the name of backup and common area maintenance, a common complaint in almost all highrise societies.
However, the developers or RWAs will continue to regulate backup and maintenance through the prepaid meter option. According to a notification issued by DHBVN on Thursday, from now on, electricity bills of single-point connections in highrise societies will be generated through a software created by the discom and the same will no longer be merged with the backup and maintenance bills. This will, however, mean recalibration of billing systems that societies use. How the new system will affect power backup services, for which the same meter is used, also remains to be seen. PC Meena, MD of DHBVN, told TOI, “Now. there is a common prepaid meter through which residents are charged for electricity consumption, power backup and maintenance. Our unified billing system will put an end to this system. Residents will pay for electricity as per our tariff according to their consumption.” Meena added, “Our teams will inspect electricity connections to ensure segregation of domestic, commercial, commercial, common areas and other uses for proper billing.”
According to the notification, energy accounting and billing of common facilities, created for the residents of housing societies such as recreational facilities, society office, street lighting, sewerage treatment plant, common parking, school and convenience stores were not being done as per the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission norms. “There were no separate metering arrangements for the common facilities and the liability of the excess consumption was charged from residents in the form of per square feet common area charges,” it read.
Residents have welcomed the move. “We hope this is one among several steps to fix the electricity infrastructure of the city,” said Gauri Sarin from Making Model Gurugram, an NGO that has been raising the issue for a long time.