TURA, July 30: The residents of the Garo Hills region who were facing power outage for 8-10 hours daily are now suffering due to inflated electricity bills. The situation has come to such that even consumers with BPL connections are getting bills in the region of Rs 3,500 despite the fact that they hardly get electricity straight for over 12 hours.
Interestingly, all those with inflated bills have been guilty of installing smart meters in their homes after which the ‘smart meter’ has ensured they do not remain smart anymore.
A consumer from the Garobadha region in South West Garo Hills (WGH) recently posted his bill on social media where the consumer apparently has just the basic essentials – two light-bulbs to see in the night. The family cannot even afford a fan and thus have been living without one. They were given their connection through BPL but are now at their wits end after they received a bill of Rs 3,655 for just one month.
Interestingly a similar bill was delivered to them last month as well and they somehow managed to pay it off fearing that their line would be cut off. With electricity now an essential service, losing it would mean a huge loss. This month however, the situation is different and they fear they may not have electricity any more.
This is not an isolated case as many such reports have emerged.
Earlier in the town of Tura, an auto driver, who has just a two-room house, one where they sleep and another where they eat, along with a toilet, got a bill of over Rs 11,500 for just one month, and that too when the entire Garo Hills was going through 10 hours of load-shedding.
Another resident nearby got a bill that was greater than her entire salary and this again when 10 hours of blackout was the norm. Last heard, she is still struggling to pay off her bills as yet.
Meanwhile residents in Garo Hills have begun to question the continued load-shedding in their areas when the entire region has been getting enough water to produce electricity for the state. Many places, including urban ones are still being hit with load-shedding for 3-4 hours at least, despite an abundance of water for now.
“How is it that the department still has to resort to load shedding even at this time when all our rivers are full and so is electricity generation. How many more months do people have to suffer the consequences of corruption in the MeECL? This is getting to the point of becoming ridiculous,” said a consumer from Mendipathar in North Garo Hills, on condition of anonymity.
MeECL authorities had earlier claimed that they were paying back in kind to a private entity for borrowing from them during the crunch months this year when the entire state hardly received any rain water.
This too is now being questioned by consumers who can scarcely believe that the state has put them in the back seat.
“So for how many months do you have to repay them back? The amount of power being generated by MeECL is actually enough to provide only that amount of electricity for us. If that is the case, why was the rest borrowed and where did it go to. This excuse is getting tiresome as everyone seems to understand that you are trying to sell this electricity somewhere else,” added another consumer from Tura.
Interestingly many areas, especially the plain belt continue to receive low wattage of electricity for whatever time they actually have electricity. What is interesting is that their electricity bills continue to remain the same or have grown even bigger during the interim.
“Are we not supposed to pay for only the service we receive? How is it that we still receive the bills that we would normally get when we had full power. What are we paying for – load-shedding? The department needs to really get its act together before someone takes them to Court for cheating us,” informed a Phulbari resident, again on condition of anonymity.
Their area continues to suffer from low voltage – a phenomenon that could have been sorted with the starting of the power grid in Chibinang, about 8 km from Phulbari. While this was supposed to have been made operational in the month of June, it remains but a pipe dream for now.
