Allaying apprehensions of over-billing among the public, the Andhra Pradesh Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (APSPDCL) has announced that bills would be distributed from May 4 as per the actual consumption of domestic users.
As the bills could not be hand-delivered to the domestic consumers owing to fear of COVID-19 spread and lockdown situation, the company had initially advised the consumers to pay the bill amount of March for the month of April too.
However, it reverted to actual consumption-based calculation system with the facilitation of spot billing system after the lockdown was relaxed across the State barring red zones.
“The total consumed units for March and April is taken for 61 days. Half the units consumed will be charged at old tariff (for March) and the other half calculated at new tariff for the month of April,” APSPDCL Chairman and Managing Director H. Haranath Rao clarified on Tuesday.
“Though consumption will rise in April compared to March, the consumers will benefit due to this method of calculating the average,” Mr. Haranath Rao pointed out.
For better clarity, the detailed bill amount for the two months will be sent as SMS to the registered mobile number of the consumers.
The actual power consumption touched a significant high in April as people stuck to their homes during the lockdown period. Even going by the statistics taken for the last five years, the March-to-April consumption pattern is arrived at 46:54.
Mr. Rao also mentioned that the company was forced to pay the power suppliers, though receivables from the consumers remained far from satisfactory and hence appealed to the public to pay their bills immediately through the SPDCL mobile app, online or digital wallets.
