While the power distribution company (discom) BSES has removed its earlier chief executive officer (CEO) and got in two new CEOs, some 60,000-odd consumers who were issued inflated bills in August are still awaiting a solution.

“Most of us still cannot understand what caused such a tremendous hike in our electricity bills,” Safdarjung Enclave resident Anil Sehgal, who received a bill of Rs 22,390 in August, said.

“While the power regulator (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, or DERC) has been quoting from a technical report, BSES has been denying everything in that report. We are not sure what happened.”

Sehgal said his bill for the same period over the last few years have ranged between Rs 6,500 and Rs 7,500. Fed up with the continual harassment, many consumers have cleared their dues.

Shamsher Bahadur, a resident of B-3 block in Safdarjung, is one of them. “BSES sent me a notice saying my electricity will be disconnected unless I pay the dues. I decided to pay up — the strategy of the discom and the regulator so far has been to extend the last date to pay the bills,” he said.

Bahadur said he received a bill of Rs 7,090 in August, against “normal” bills of Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 for the same period last year.

But Nanki Awath Ramani, 75, said she would not pay unless “some sort of solution emerges. This is ridiculous and I wonder how long the discom intends to keep harassing consumers”.

Frustrated with lodging complaints, Sehgal said, “We have launched endless complaints. BSES even sent people to check our power meters, which were given a clean chit. So the issue of inflated bills did not emerge from there.”

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