<p>Bescom consumers facing problems with paying their electricity bills will have to wait longer for the issue to be resolved.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The Infosys software recently adopted by Bescom is plagued with numerous problems, according to officials. Owing to this, the billing system had crashed between October 26 and 31. The problem resurfaced after November 5 and now the staff have resorted to hand receipts, as online billing is taking no less than 15 minutes in several cases.<br /><br />A senior official in Bescom, who did not want to be name, said: “We are having problems with Infosys service for the past two-and-a-half years. The gaps are huge. They are crippling. They are not meeting the deadlines. Their attitude seems to be that of charity towards the government.”<br /><br />In fact, Bescom had levied a penalty of Rs four crore on Infosys as its spot billing machines were not up to the mark. The problem is across all the Escoms in the State. In Gescom alone (Gulbarga), as many as 14,000 fresh applications are said to be pending because of the software issues, according to officials. Bescom GM (IT) Nagalakshmi said her staff was doing all they can to make things easy for consumers. “There are problems with the Disaster Recovery, which Infosys put in place recently. Updating the data is taking a long time as hand receipts are to be transferred to Excel sheets, to be later uploaded on the server. The possibility of data getting mixed up is due to this,” she explained.<br /><br />Deccan Herald had published a report (November 10) on the jumbling of account numbers and RR numbers in the Electronic Clearance System that has caused a lot of confusion among customers. It turned out that the problem is not limited to ECS alone. In the case of Dr Shankar Prasad, who runs the NGO Sampoorna Swaraj, he did not get his bills regularly in May and June this year. As a domino effect, the bill came to Rs 13,000 the next time. Recently, he received a bill for Rs 9,000 instead of Rs 4000. “I visited the Bescom office at least five times trying to find the reason for this,” he said. Frustrated, he wrote a mail to Infosys, the software provider to Bescom. “I got a reply from Infosys that Bescom owed them Rs 200 crore which was why the problems persisted.”<br /><br />In the reply, a top marketing official wrote: “Ask them to pay us. They owe us Rs 200 crore for one year… would appreciate your telling Bescom that on your sixth visit” (a copy of this email exchange is available with Deccan Herald).<br /><br />Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Bescom managing director, told Deccan Herald that the figure was wrong. The company owed Infosys approximately about Rs 45 crore and the payment was on milestone basis. “They did not deliver us the right software. We have asked them for 200 improvements in the software. Unless they comply, we cannot pay the money.”<br /><br />Infosys responds<br /><br />In a statement to Deccan Herald, Infosys said: “As of date, the current outstanding is around Rs 48 crore as per the payment terms of the contract. Infosys has successfully migrated all the 169 sub-division office (SDO) data into the new Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP) system as of October 2013.”<br /><br />Further it said, “We understand that one of the payment partners of Bescom had incorrect bank account mapping for 3,500 accounts last month, which has led to a number of collection issues resulting in incorrect data flowing into the RAPDRP system leading to discrepancies in billing/collection. We have worked with the SDOs since then and resolved these data issues and there have not been any such issues reported since August.” If the project is not completed on time, the grant would be converted to loan and Bescom would have to repay it to the Centre. Recently, an extension was granted on the project till September 2014. Earlier, Infosys was asked to complete it by September this year, so that Bescom would have a couple of months’ time to complete the energy audit before wrapping it up.<br /><br />The total project cost of the RAPDRP across all the Escoms in the State is Rs 469.90 crore. The project, funded by the Union government, is being implemented across the country. <br /><br />The share of grants of Bescom is Rs 261.36 crore (98 towns). Currently, Rs 100.22 crore have been spent.</p>
<p>Bescom consumers facing problems with paying their electricity bills will have to wait longer for the issue to be resolved.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The Infosys software recently adopted by Bescom is plagued with numerous problems, according to officials. Owing to this, the billing system had crashed between October 26 and 31. The problem resurfaced after November 5 and now the staff have resorted to hand receipts, as online billing is taking no less than 15 minutes in several cases.<br /><br />A senior official in Bescom, who did not want to be name, said: “We are having problems with Infosys service for the past two-and-a-half years. The gaps are huge. They are crippling. They are not meeting the deadlines. Their attitude seems to be that of charity towards the government.”<br /><br />In fact, Bescom had levied a penalty of Rs four crore on Infosys as its spot billing machines were not up to the mark. The problem is across all the Escoms in the State. In Gescom alone (Gulbarga), as many as 14,000 fresh applications are said to be pending because of the software issues, according to officials. Bescom GM (IT) Nagalakshmi said her staff was doing all they can to make things easy for consumers. “There are problems with the Disaster Recovery, which Infosys put in place recently. Updating the data is taking a long time as hand receipts are to be transferred to Excel sheets, to be later uploaded on the server. The possibility of data getting mixed up is due to this,” she explained.<br /><br />Deccan Herald had published a report (November 10) on the jumbling of account numbers and RR numbers in the Electronic Clearance System that has caused a lot of confusion among customers. It turned out that the problem is not limited to ECS alone. In the case of Dr Shankar Prasad, who runs the NGO Sampoorna Swaraj, he did not get his bills regularly in May and June this year. As a domino effect, the bill came to Rs 13,000 the next time. Recently, he received a bill for Rs 9,000 instead of Rs 4000. “I visited the Bescom office at least five times trying to find the reason for this,” he said. Frustrated, he wrote a mail to Infosys, the software provider to Bescom. “I got a reply from Infosys that Bescom owed them Rs 200 crore which was why the problems persisted.”<br /><br />In the reply, a top marketing official wrote: “Ask them to pay us. They owe us Rs 200 crore for one year… would appreciate your telling Bescom that on your sixth visit” (a copy of this email exchange is available with Deccan Herald).<br /><br />Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Bescom managing director, told Deccan Herald that the figure was wrong. The company owed Infosys approximately about Rs 45 crore and the payment was on milestone basis. “They did not deliver us the right software. We have asked them for 200 improvements in the software. Unless they comply, we cannot pay the money.”<br /><br />Infosys responds<br /><br />In a statement to Deccan Herald, Infosys said: “As of date, the current outstanding is around Rs 48 crore as per the payment terms of the contract. Infosys has successfully migrated all the 169 sub-division office (SDO) data into the new Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (RAPDRP) system as of October 2013.”<br /><br />Further it said, “We understand that one of the payment partners of Bescom had incorrect bank account mapping for 3,500 accounts last month, which has led to a number of collection issues resulting in incorrect data flowing into the RAPDRP system leading to discrepancies in billing/collection. We have worked with the SDOs since then and resolved these data issues and there have not been any such issues reported since August.” If the project is not completed on time, the grant would be converted to loan and Bescom would have to repay it to the Centre. Recently, an extension was granted on the project till September 2014. Earlier, Infosys was asked to complete it by September this year, so that Bescom would have a couple of months’ time to complete the energy audit before wrapping it up.<br /><br />The total project cost of the RAPDRP across all the Escoms in the State is Rs 469.90 crore. The project, funded by the Union government, is being implemented across the country. <br /><br />The share of grants of Bescom is Rs 261.36 crore (98 towns). Currently, Rs 100.22 crore have been spent.</p>
