Following overwhelming complaints regarding the electricity bill amount for the bills raised after the 2nd nationwide lockdown, the Bhutan Power Corporation (BPC) issued a public notification today ‘to address this issue comprehensively.’
According to the notification, the billing was done as per the BPC’s COVID-19 contingency plan and standard operating procedure (SoP) of average billing. Meaning, the bills for January 2021 were prepared based on the average consumption of the past three months. The average billing was adopted predominantly for Thimphu and Paro. The same was also done during the first nationwide lockdown.
However, the bill for February was prepared on actual meter reading which reflected the increased energy consumption that was not accounted for in the average bill of January. “Additionally, the bills also reflected the outstanding of the previous bills including the late payment charges (penalty). The penalty was generated by the system for the customers who had not paid the bills. As was done for the 1st lockdown period, the same shall be waived off the last two-tariff cycles and adjusted accordingly.”
“BPC has reviewed the billing computation with due regard to the application of the block tariff structure for each billing cycle. The January bill amount was low which inadvertently did not capture the actual energy consumed for that month i.e. increased consumption during the winter months while the February month bill had reflected the difference between actual consumption for two months less the January month. As the meter reading for February month has captured actual consumption for two months, the total consumption will be equally distributed for January and February bill cycle to ensure that the block-wise benefits as per the tariff structure are applied,” the notification states.
The BPC will be issuing the revised bills for the January and February months at the earliest. And for customers who had already cleared the bills, it will be adjusted in the subsequent bills.
Sonam
