Pune:
Two sets of rules seem to be at work when it comes to the payment of power bills. The political class gets away with running up huge bills that can remain unpaid for as long as it wants, while commoners are harassed endlessly when they seek rectification of faulty, ridiculously high bills.
If you are an ordinary citizen, then the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) can shock you with faulty electricity bills that can go up to even Rs 1 lakh per month.
That's not all, the MSEDCL then starts harassing you for payment of the faulty bill, even cutting off your power supply as you run from pillar to post trying to get your bill rectified.
The picture changes completely if you have political clout. Then, MSEDCL will grovel and plead before you to make the payment for the high amounts you run up.
It will even offer you the installments option to clear arrears.
Take the case of BJP corporator Medha Kulkarni. She and her husband had a shop in a posh area in the city. They ran a photocopying business there and their power bill arrears had risen to Rs 30,000, said MSEDCL sources.
But the MSEDCL has given them the facility of clearing their dues in installments.
On the other hand, there is Dr R D Rahalkar, who runs a clinic on Laxmi Road.
He has been running from one unconcerned official to another in MSEDCL since he started receiving bills to the tune of more than 97,000 per month for his residential connection.
"My monthly bill used to be around Rs 1,150. But now I am getting bills ranging from Rs 80,000 to Rs 97,000 for three months," said Rahalkar.
Consumer activist Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagarik Manch said there were many such cases, and it was seen that MSEDCL harasses innocent consumers while pampering those with political clout.
The problem for Rahalkar started after the MSEDCL installed a new meter at his residence in September.
"The new meter might have belonged to some high networth individual, but which has now been put up at my residence. Maybe his last reading is in my bills," said Rahalkar, adding that he does not know why MSEDCL changed his meter.
The doctor is one among thousands of consumers in the city and the rural areas around who have got such exorbitant bills.
In a city with 12 lakh connections, about 50,000 consumers get faulty bills every month, said sources in MSEDCL.