With the “going cashless” phenomenon catching up like never before, Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) is also seeing what is being termed a “drastic jump” in the number of consumers choosing to pay online.
Bescom officials from the online payment cell said of the approximate 80 lakh consumer base, around eight lakh were paying online through net banking and credit or debit cards. This was in addition to other cashless modes of payment such as ECS.
“Bescom first started online collections in July 2014 through its website. Later, offline vendors were added. The total number of consumers paying online in July 2014 was about 83,579 and the amount collected was ₹7.92 crore. In March 2017, the number of consumers stood at 7,88,582 and the amount collected was ₹306.21 crore,” an official said.
“We are collecting electricity bills of around ₹724 crore a month through online transactions out of the total bill collection which is around ₹1,300 crore to ₹1,400 crore a month,” officials added.
According to Bescom, earlier, the collection through online modes was around ₹400 crore a month. However, online payment was made mandatory for consumers with HT (high tension) connections in May last year, which gave further impetus to the utility’s cashless drive.
Bescom too has been making conscious effort to increase the number of payment options to its consumers. An example has been the return of Any Time Payment (ATP) kiosks, which were withdrawn briefly.
More options
Apart from urging more consumers to pay their bills using the cashless facilities, Bescom has also been adding to the existing options. For instance, apart from avenues such as Bill Desk, KarnatakaOne and BangaloreOne centres, post offices and Paytm too have been added to the list.
“Soon, Axis Bank and Vijaya Bank will also be added as our vendors to collect payments through our gateway,” said the official.
