Tamil Nadu electricity bills will now be blocked for manual verification only when the difference from the previous bill exceeds Rs 3,000, under a new software-based control introduced by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board to reduce errors in meter readings.
The board has been reviewing unusually high bills after complaints that some field staff recorded estimated consumption without visiting homes. Such entries have reportedly resulted in households with low actual usage receiving significantly higher bills.
Under the earlier review process, connections were flagged when the bill difference exceeded 20% for households that had consumed more than 500 units in both July and August. The new system, being implemented from September 5, will stop bill generation when the difference from the previous bill is more than Rs 3,000. Officials will then visit the premises to verify the meter reading and determine the reason for the increase.
The board has assigned inspection responsibilities according to the value of the billing difference. Revenue supervisors will inspect connections where the difference is between Rs 3,000 and Rs 10,000. Calculation officers will handle differences from Rs 10,001 to Rs 15,000, while assistant accounts officers will inspect cases between Rs 15,001 and Rs 20,000. Differences above Rs 20,000 will be reviewed by assistant engineers.
The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has instructed supervising engineers to ensure that these inspections are completed within five days. The stated objective is to prevent incorrect bills from being generated while retaining a process for checking high-value variations before consumers are required to pay them.
The board’s action follows a wider review ordered in July after 3.70 lakh electricity connections recorded bills more than three times higher than those issued during the previous year. The review confirmed errors in 2,050 connections, according to the report published by Dinamalar.
In the latest ten-day review, officials inspected 60,000 connections whose bill generation had been blocked. Errors in meter readings were identified in 100 of those connections. Although the number represents a small share of the inspected connections, the findings indicate that inaccuracies continue to occur in the household meter-reading process.
The board’s revised process places greater emphasis on physical verification for large billing variations while using software to identify cases for inspection. The board has also directed senior officials to maintain oversight of meter-reading work and take action against personnel found to have recorded readings incorrectly.
