52 year old lady, a BPL beneficiary finally gets electricity back in her house.
Picture for representational purpose only.
Warangal: Living without electricity for more than one and half year, a 52 year old Ch Amrutha, a BPL/Indiramma house beneficiary and resident of Kareemabad, fought the mighty NPDCL Discom’s decision disconnecting her power supply in a dispute concerning inflated bill.
Her grit and determination bore fruit on Friday when in CC No. 219 of 2012 the Warangal Consumer Forum’s in-charge president P. Praveen Kumar Patel and member S.B. Bhargavi, ordered the Discom to restore her power supply besides awarding a fine of Rs10,000 for making her undergo mental trauma and Rs 2,000 as costs.
According to the facts mentioned in the case, the Discom disconnected poer supply in Ms Amrutha’s modest Indiramma house in 50 square yard land at Kareemabad on 27-02-2012 after she failed to pay electricity dues for consuming 3,616 units in the month of September, 2011 amounting to Rs22,038.
The victim claimed that she used only two ceiling fans, two tubelights and a television set, consuming between Rs100 to Rs 400 worth power every month but her grievance remained unaddressed by local assistant, divisional as well as the superintendent engineers respectively.
Her plea with discom staff to cut her highly inflated power bill of 3,616 units in the month of September, 2011 fell on deaf ears but they agreed to reduce the bill from Rs22,000 to Rs10,479.47 with a rider that she get her electricity meter tested by paying a fee of Rs150 on 7-9-2011.
However, even after paying the nominal fee for meter testing, the discom claimed that there was no fault with her electricity meter and disconnected power supply in February 2012, forcing her to approach the consumer forum for relief. Incidentally, this is said to be the first instance of a BPL beneficiary taking against NPDCL at Warangal consumer forum for justice.
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