I’m in my wife’s parent’s house in Mysore. I came here to take a break.
This is something my Internet business allows me to do without waiting for someone else permission. And I’m writing this email from her house with limited access to the internet.
Anyway…
A few days back, one of my readers contacted me asking for some solutions to the problems they were facing. I asked our electrical contractor and responded to him.
Below is what the question is:
Dear sir,
My contractor took temporary connection for construction of second floor in April 2021 . After 3 months, the temporary connection was surrendered and the separate meter was handed over to Bescom.
Now after 34 months, Bescom has issued a bill for arrears of Rs.6500/- as audit short claim along with monthly charge of Rs.250/- against my RR number (2 KW). I have paid the monthly charges under my RR number. But I have not paid the arrears yet.
On enquiry Bescom official said that at the time of surrender of temporary connection on 2.8.21, there was arrears of Rs.1500/- which was not paid . So penalty has been charged for 33 days from 30.6.21 to 2.8.21 at the rate of Rs.250/- per 1 KW per week plus interest payment of around Rs.500/-.
It means for so called arrears of RS.1500/-
the penalty plus interest amount is Rs.5000/-.
This is highly ridiculous. This is nothing but harassing a senior citizen by a govt department.
What is your view on this? What is the actual penalty for non payment of temporary connection monthly recurring charges. How they have accepted the meter without recovering the arrears at the time of surrender of meter on 2.8.21.
Can you throw some light.
Regards
Parameshwar.
Basically, his contractor didn’t do his job well, and now this customer is facing a penalty from BESCOM.
This is common.
If users don’t pick the right electrical contractor, this is what is going to happen. And there is no way you can verify all these things yourself until you face an issue.
Because of his electrical contractor’s mistake, our reader must now pay ₹5,000…
In our first building, we also suffered a lot due to our electrical contractor. That’s why I wrote that guide a little early.
If you notice this reader’s email, you will understand how they feel.
We also felt similar… maybe even worse in our case.
I highly recommend choosing the right electrical contractor for your building. If you wrongly select your electrical contractor, you will face issues at the end stage of your house construction.
When building our second building, we took many extra steps to ensure we picked the right electrical contractor. Our project is quite big, and we don’t want to face issues later.
All the extra effort we put in — is it really worth it?
It’s definitely worth it for us.
BESCOM is one of the worst and most corrupt departments you will face. Keep that in mind.
You can google the Bescom Bribery case and notice tons of results. So be prepared for it.
For your information, it is very rare to get caught while taking bribes in Bescom. In most cases, communication happens only between Bescom officials and contractors and contractors to you.
So, getting caught won’t happen normally. Even though you will see a lot of bribery cases if you search online.
I’m not going to guarantee you will avoid paying bribes. But I can say that you will get the right contractor who knows his work, can handle office work efficiently and, most importantly, can complete your work without any issues.
If you want to find such an efficient electrical contractor, I shared my process in my Electrical Work Guide.
You can find more information below:
https://houseconstructionguide.com/electrical-work-guide/
Arun