UPI payment facility for HESCOM urban customers still a nightmare

People of urban areas including Hubballi-Dharwad and Belagavi Cities under the jurisdiction of Hubballi Electricity Supply Company (HESCOM) have been deprived of paying electricity bills through UPI payment option for the last seven months.

For the last seven months, the UPI-based payment option at HESCOM was stopped, and consumers were asked to pay their bills by logging into the HESCOM website. Many people who are familiar with paying bills at their fingertips by using UPI payment applications, found it difficult, and are forcing the service provider to resume the UPI-based payment system.

However, about two months ago, the HESCOM started UPI payment facility in rural areas, and rural customers of all seven districts of HESCOM jurisdiction including Dharwad, Belagavi, Uttara Kannada, Haveri, Gadag, Bagalkot, and Vijayapura districts are now able to pay through UPI payment option. 

But, the same facility has not started in all 29 Cities and towns including Hubballi-Dharwad, Belagavi, Vijayapura, Begalkot, Gadag, Haveri, Ranebennur, Sirsi, Karwad, Dandeli, and other towns.

New contract

According to sources, the Bank of Baroda was giving the UPI payment service to HESCOM. In March 2023, its tender lapsed. Therefore, HESCOM made a new contract with Airtel Bank to provide UPI payment service to HESCOM. 

“The customers’ data of the entire State is being maintained at the centralised ‘command data centre’, which comes under Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), and it is being operated by a private agency. The urban and rural data are being maintained separately, and service providers are also different.

To give UPI payment facilities to rural areas, there was no technical problem with the data centre, and UPI payment facility started two months ago. But, there is a technical problem to provide the service to urban customers due to the old system at the data centre,” said sources.

HESCOM Managing Director M Roshan said, the technical glitch will be solved very shortly as the central technical team is working on the data centre problem. Once the technical problem is solved, the UPI payment facility will start the very next day.

“Due to suspended UPI payment facility, bill collection has not reduced in any part of the HESCOM jurisdiction. Following the launch of the ‘Gruha Jyothi’ scheme, most of the people are getting zero bills, and others are paying physically at nearby centres or through HESCOM website,” he said.

Other ESCOMs

The other ESCOMs of the State have continued the old tender with UPI payment service providing banks, and those banks are running with old technology to provide UPI payment facility.

But, HESCOM made a new tender with Airtel Bank, which has upgraded technology for UPI payment facility. The upgraded technology of the Airtel Bank is not matching with the old technology of the command data centre. Both Airtel Bank and the government's technical team are working to address the problem.