Data errors hit Bescom bill payments through electronic clearance service

Several consumers who have subscribed to Bescom’s electronic clearance service (ECS) are having trouble with payment of electricity bills, owing to problems in data management. 

The process allows the consumer to pay the bill directly through the bank account without visiting Bescom office in person. 

In several instances, there has been a mix-up in the bank account numbers and as a result, the customers are facing penalty for non-payment of bills, for no fault of theirs. According to Bescom officials, there are 75,000 subscribers to ECS.

In one such instance, Mahesh (name changed) who has been paying his power bill for nearly a decade through ECS had a rude shock a few days ago when he received the monthly bill for October, reflecting arrears of nearly Rs 1,700 and a penalty of Rs 300. 

When he enquired at the Bescom office, he was told that the bank had returned the ECS payment request for lack of sufficient funds. When he insisted that he had sufficient funds in his bank account, the official showed the data on computer. But, Mahesh was in for further shock as the account number was not his. Also, magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) number was different. Then, the official revealed that the problem has happened because of a glitch in the software, which was upgraded a few months ago.  
  The employee also corrected the data and reversed the penalty in the records. 

While employees in some of the Bescom sub divisions admit that they have been flooded with complaints regarding billing in the last couple of months, senior officials insist that they could be stray cases. 

Complaints galore

 An employee in one of the sub-divisions, who did not want to be named, showed the complaint book running into several pages and said, “I have received nearly 200 complaints in the last few weeks. I fear 50 per cent of nearly 3,600 consumers opting for ECS in the sub division might have been affected during the software upgrading. My colleagues in other sub-divisions are also complaining about it. Unless the consumer approaches us, there is no way of knowing the mistake. However, I have asked for a soft copy of the data from the computer centre to deal with the problem.”

When contacted by Deccan Herald, some officials admitted that they have been receiving complaints for some time now from sub-divisions. An assistant engineer in Bescom said: “I too have come across the problem. We have received some complaints. But, we do not know why this is happening.” 

Malathi, AGM, ECS Cell, claimed she had come across only one such case in E 3 sub division but it was sorted out immediately. “There are 48 sub divisions. We cannot generalise the problem. Some of the staff have been expressing problems as it is a new feature. We have been addressing all the complaints pertaining to ECS either received through helpline or by phone.”
‘Infosys warned of contract withdrawal’

The data management was outsourced to Infosys two years ago as part of the R-APDRP (Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme) project. 

It is being implemented in phases and three months ago it went live in all sub divisions, according to officials in the ECS Cell. 

Sources in Bescom said a meeting was held on Thursday on problems with regard to ECS facility and Infosys representatives were warned of withdrawal of contract if their services did not measure up to the expectations. Bescom managing director Pankaj Kumar Pandey told Deccan Herald that the meeting was about the slowing down of the server for two days this week and the representatives had promised that it would be rectified within 24 hours. “We had called Infosys. There was a crash of their server. This problem is for the last two to three days,” he said. They had not come across any problem related to consumers’ bank numbers, he added