Even after the collection system was fully computerised in the Electricity Department, long queues of consumers in front of payment counters and arguments over long delays are still a common sight.
When computerisation came in 1992 to the Pondicherry State Electricity Department and its bill collection centres- 45 in Puducherry, 17 Karaikal, seven each in Mahe and Yanam, the age old system of hand-billing made a quiet exit.
“We are still using the old computers bought in 1992. As most of machines are not in usable condition, we have to struggle to complete billing and collection of payment transactions of consumers. Very often the computer would dysfunction and we have to face the ire of the consumers waiting in the queue,” said V. Radhakrishnan, secretary of Bill Collectors Union.
Everyday Bill Collectors take the data of consumers who make payment in a pen-drive with insufficient memory space and load the data into the central server of State Electricity Department.
“Our systems are vulnerable to virus attacks and there are frequent crashes,” he alleged.
The Bill Collectors also alleged that recently bought computers are being used by officers instead of bill collectors.
Another Bill Collector said: “We have not been provided with any machine to identify fake notes. If we collect such notes inadvertently, we have to incur the loss. Our head office doesn’t accept such notes after identifying such notes through machines installed there.”
When the department migrated to computerised system, there were only 1.5 lakh consumers. Now that figure has swelled to 4.5 lakh users. Each collection centre was earlier dealing with 1,500 consumers while now it has to handle around 15,000 consumers.
Bill Collectors on Monday staged a demonstration in front of the State Electricity Department demanding the filling up of vacancies and better infrastructure.
M. Bharath Kumar, president of Bill Collectors Union said the department should fill 27 vacant posts immediately. The consumer base has been increased manyfold. As a proportionate measure, the department should maintain a ratio of one Bill Collector for every 3,000 consumers and has to create 252 new Bill Collector posts expeditiously.
