Strong discontentment is brewing among the consumers  under the Tata Power Northern Odisha Distribution Limited (TPNODL), formerly  Nesco, as  they are not getting quality and uninterrupted power supply and service.

Besides, the consumers alleged that a majority of the domestic consumers had not got the bill for August even as the month ended on Tuesday. The metre readers never visited their houses.

They fear that the next month's billing could  put them in higher slabs  when both  months' consumptions  will be combined.

“The consumers  are apprehensive when for the ongoing month the metre readers didn’t visit houses and generate bills.

They fear that in  the next month when two months' bill would be served they might have to pay in higher slabs for none of their faults,” rued Girija Shankar Das, a functionary of the Electricity Consumers’ Protection Forum.

When asked regarding the issue, Chief Commercial Manager Ramesh besides stating that the phase was transition one, said  that there were certain technical issues due to which the  door- to -door metre reading couldn’t  take place.

“Look this is the transition phase. For billing we were incorporating  new software but migration  issues came in between. Due to the technical glitch we couldn’t put  them in place. Further, the metre readers under the old vendors  didn’t cooperate  with us  since he was replaced  with  a new vendor. 44 metre readers were  under the old vendors in the town area.

However , the billing  issue will be resolved  from next month," he said, assuring that the issue of higher slab charges in case of two months billing would be addressed.

There are about 60,000 electricity consumers  under TPNODL and  sources said most domestic consumers have not received electricity bill for the month of August.

Regarding frequent load shedding, Chief Operational Officer Dushyant  Tyagi too maintained  that the problems occurred due to change of guard.

“For the last several years, no major infrastructural  upgrade has been made. The conductors and transformers have become old and unable to sustain load and distribution effectively.

Since  we are working on the old infrastructure  and replacement process is on, the load shedding  is occurring. However, the problem would be sorted out within a couple of months,” said Tyagi.