Tangedco to refund charges collected for locked house with interest

In a first, the Consumer Grievance and Redressal Forum (CGRF) of South Chennai has ordered the Tangedco to make a refund along with interest to a consumer for collecting consumption charges for a locked house.

CGRF Chennai South-II chairman directed the Tangedco to refund Rs 3,836—the consumption charge collected from the consumer through a cheque along with another cheque for interest.

The issue pertains to the wrongful entry of meter reading resulting in the consumer paying Rs 3,836 for 1,880 units for the house which remained locked. Samuel Chadrakumar Wilson, the consumer, in his petition dated July 1 stated that his house at Medavakkam remained vacant for more than a year. “The assessment reading entered on March 30 this year was 30,440 whereas actual reading on April 6 was 28,603 and the same remains as on date. Assessment has been made for nearly 1,880 units that were not used or recorded but fraudulently (Tangedco) collected the amount of Rs 3,836,” it stated.

Tangedco’s executive engineer, Tambaram, reported that the service connection was checked and found that, for the assessment entered for the period March 2021, the KWH units was entered wrongly as 30,440 units. For May 2021, May 2019 reading was entered. On June 7, the previous month consumption entered was deleted and the same unit 30,440 was entered with nil consumption.

RTI activist and a retired TNEB engineer C Selvaraj who appeared for the petition at the CGRF argued that the wrong meter reading was not corrected on the consumer ledger even after an inspection and sought a refund through cheque along with interest. CGRF chairman directed the EE of Tambaram to refund the amount through cheque along with interest.

Selvaraj said that the CGRF has ordered for the first time to provide interest for the refund.