After outages, now delayed bills

After trying unscheduled power outages, LESCO has found another way of troubling its consumers and making their lives more miserable. LESCO delivered electricity bills to consumers this month very late and hence causing severe problems, for them, Pakistan Today learnt on Monday.
Earlier people from almost every part of the city have been complaining about the inflated bills and wrong billing. Hence, LESCO has become a nuisance for the people because it carries out unscheduled loadshedding, over charge its customers and now it is delivering the bills late.
In many areas such as Township, Green Town, Faisal Town, Johar Town and Model Town, the electricity bills are delivered very late and hence making it difficult for the consumers to pay it in time. The last date in those areas was December 27th while the bills were delivered there on Monday (December 26th).
Interestingly, the issuance date mentioned on the bills is December 19th but the utility never bothers to timely deliver these bills. In many cases, the meter-reading mentioned in the bill does not match the actual reading.
Many consumers who have approached the sub-division of their areas concerned complain that no body pays attention towards their complaints. The Sub-Division Officers (SDO) of Township and Green Town are not ready to listen to the complaints of the consumers.
“The meter reader of my area deliberately added extra units to my bill. I approached the SDO concerned for correction in my bill but he refused to do that saying there was nothing wrong with the bill,” lamented Muhammad Rizwan, a resident of Green Town. Another consumer, Jamshed Latif of Township, said the LESCO officials were refusing to deduct the fuel price adjustment charges from their bills. He said the officials told them that they could not do that since they had not received any written orders from their head office. He said the consumer centres of LESCO had closed their doors for the public.
Meanwhile, residents of Rewaz Garden staged a protest demonstration on Monday against fuel price adjustment (FPA). A large number of consumers had come to the LESCO office at Rewaz Garden and sought deduction of the FPA from their bills but the officials on duty refused to comply with their demand.
Enraged, they held a demonstration denouncing LESCO for not complying with the LHC’s orders on FPA. “The court has clearly ordered to readjust FPA but the LESCO officials are not obeying the court orders,” said the one of protesters.
LESCO officials, however, say that only the NEPRA is responsible for the FPA deduction. Meanwhile, the Lahorites had a tough day on Monday as well since they had to face 10 to 12 hours of power outages in last 24 hours.