Vijayawada: Power consumers forced to cough up 'development' charges

Vijayawada: Apart from bearing true-up charges, tariffs and fines, the consumers of the electricity in the state now have to bear additional burden in the form of development charges. Power distribution companies such as AP Central Power Distribution Company Limited (APCPDCL), Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited, (APEPDCL) and Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (APSPDCL) have come up with an idea of collecting additional charges by levying fines on the consumers.

Mainly, the APCPDCL is collecting extra charges from the consumers after checking the power consumption history of the customers. The department's assistant engineers along with linemen of the area/village concerned are inspecting the consumer's power meters and imposing fines by citing additional load charges.

The authorities are imposing fines against the customer ranging from Rs 2,300 to Rs 3,000 and more by checking the meter record. If the meter is being used for commercial purpose, the load charges may soar up to Rs 5,000.

On the other hand, the authorities also set a deadline for the customers to pay the amount. If the customers fail to pay the fine amount by the due date, the power connection of the customer must be disconnected. Due to this unwanted and absurd fines and charges, the customers are feeling angry and criticising the policies vof the government.

Power consumers of the state are now facing the worst situations. On the one hand they have to pay regular electricity bill, bear the true-up charges, pay the additional fines; on the other hand the consumers must pay development charges. If any customer uses a fridge, geyser or AC, he should be ready to bear the additional loading charges.

The power distribution companies are levying fines for excess load. When the customer takes the new connection, his implicit contracted load is 1.0 KW and the customer pays the money towards that. In fact, so far the domestic customers have been utilising the power under 1.0 KW. However, interestingly, for the past two to three years, the domestic customers consumption has automatically changed to 2.0 KW, prompting discoms to impose fines and collecting additional load charges from the customers.

In view of this, the power authorities imposed additional charges of Rs 2,000 for excess load of 1.0 KW and imposed another around Rs 400 for application fees, inspection charges, connection charges along with the GST.

A consumer V Vasu from Pedana said that he had to pay around Rs 5,000 for additional load charges. He said that this type of collection caused a lot of trouble for them. Another customer Y Nageswara Rao of Konkepudi village of Krishna said that he received a notice for additional loading charges of Rs 2,400. He complained that in spite of using power as usual, the authorities imposed a fine. He said that he has never seen this type of collection.

Speaking to 'The Hans India', K Jaya Ram, electrical AE of Pedana of Krishna district, said that they are imposing additional load charges as per the data. He informed them that they were only imposing fines on those whose power consumption exceeded contracted load of 1.0 KW. For this, they considered 6 months meter's data. He further said that they were visiting households on every Tuesday and Friday in his jurisdiction and issuing notices to 80-90 consumers per day after inspecting the customer's power consumption.