TSSPDCL to keep power bill counters open till noon

Hyderabad: Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSPDCL) has asked officials concerned to keep all the bill collection counters open from 6 am to 12 noon instead of 10 am to enable consumers pay bills and improve bill collection. The Electricity Revenue Officers (ERO) collection counters should also be open from 10 am to 5 pm.

The TSSPDCL has instructed officials to take necessary permission from the police to operate collection counters during the lockdown hours and also provide necessary identity cards and permission letters to the private agency persons who man the collection counters, according to Chief General Manager (Revenue).

These instructions were given after consumers complained through emails and WhatsApp expressing certain difficulties in payment of their monthly electricity bills during lockdown period. Consumers expressed difficulties in paying bills offline due to counters closing after 10 am.

Meanwhile, Telangana State Power Employees Joint Action Committee (TSPEJAC) has urged the Chairman and Managing Director of TS-Genco and TS-Transco to take necessary steps to provide vaccines to all the electricity employees and artisans on priority in the larger interest of their health and maintain uninterrupted power supply to consumers.

In a letter to the TS-Transco and TS-Genco Chairman, the TSPEJAC said the employees were putting their best efforts in ensuring 24 hours uninterrupted power supply after the outbreak of Covid and resultant lockdown.

The electricity being an essential service sector, the employees have been discharging their duties under threat to life during the pandemic. The employees of Medical and Health, and Police departments along with the sanitation workers have been vaccinated on priority by treating them as frontline workers.

“It is a fact that the employees working in the electricity department are most important apart from other frontline workers in dealing with the crisis due to Covid-19,” the TSPEJAC said.

It further stated that the electricity employees of certain other States like Punjab, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh treated them as frontline workers and vaccines were administered to them on priority. The Ministry of Power gave directions to the State Governments to take necessary action for vaccination of employees working in the power sector.

The central power utilities like National Thermal Power Corporation Limited, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation have started mass vaccination camps for its employees.