Over 61,000 clients raise allegations of inflated electricity bills
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Some 61,265 electricity clients have so far raised allegation against inflated electricity bills out of around 40 million consumers across the country.
Four state-run electricity distribution companies, till now, took different punitive measures against some 290 of their employees on the basis of allegations.
Power division secretary Dr Sultan Ahmed revealed this during a virtual press conference from his ministry office on Sunday.
He said the issues will be resolved soon and no one will have to pay additional electricity bills.
Speaking on the occasion, he said also informed that 601 employees of power sector have so far been infected with the deadly coronavirus and 12 already died.
Like many others professionals, the power sector people are performing their responsibilities taking all risks for an uninterrupted power supply, he said.
Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) received complainants only from 2,582, which is only 0.08 per cent of its clients, and among 29 million clients of Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB), only 34,681 or 0.12 per cent of the total clients complained, utility companies informed.
Only 15,266 clients out of 926,689, or 1.65 per cent of the total clients, registered complaints against clients of Dhaka Power Distribution Company Ltd (DPDC).
Earlier, on June 25 the Power Division under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR), submitted its report to the MPEMR constituted task force, headed by an additional secretary of Power Division for taking punitive measures against those involvement in providing 'inflated' electricity bills to consumers.
The DPDC has already temporarily suspended four of its engineers and served show cause notices to 36 others.
The DESCO suspend two metre readers and issued cautionary letter to eight others.
West Zone Power Distribution Company Ltd, (WZPDC), issued show cause notices against 223 metre readers and the Northern Electricity Supply Company Ltd, (NESCO), suspend two of its metre readers.
Information on action against the employees of BREB and BPDB has not revealed yet.
The BPDB Chairman Md Belayet Hossain, BREB Chairman Major General (Retd) Moin Uddin, Director General of Power Cell Engineer Mohammad Hossain were also present at the briefing.