Sajid Mohammed & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Nov 13: For the convenience of Islanders, Andaman and Nicobar Administration had started Common Service Centers in South Andaman region, which is the so called one stop shop for all Govt. related works.
Common Service Centers are widely known today to pay electricity bills and most of the Islanders use it only for the above purpose. The electricity bills in the CSCs are only accepted after the 12th of every month which causes a lot of inconvenience to the residents. The sole reason that the CSC staffs have for the late acceptance of the bill amount is that they do not get the data from the electricity department on time.
The due date in the electricity bills are mostly within 20th day of a month and the CSCs start taking payment only after 12th day of a month because of which many people are unable to pay the bills in time which leads extra to burden on the consumers and they are forced to pay the bill with the extra late charges.
Many of the consumers are made to visit the CSCs multiple times to pay a single electricity bill sometimes the net connection has problems and sometimes the standard reason is that the data is not yet received. The CSC’s seems to be burdening people more than facilitating them.
When, Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. Srinivas Rao, Project Manager, CSC to know why the bills are not accepted before 12th of a month. Mr. Srinivas informed us that the data from the electricity department has to come from 6th to 8th day of the month but the data is often received on 10th to 12th day of the month because of which the CSC’s accept the payment only after 12th day of the month.
Mr. Srinivas Rao also informed that to overcome this the electricity department is launching a website which will start in the South Andaman region from next month the beta version of the website is already functioning in the Calicut and Birdline area. He further added that when the website starts functioning the discrepancies in paying the electric bills will be solved.
