look news india
New electricity service: Consumers get upset due to wrong electricity bills and keep visiting the office. Till now, different reasons for irregularities in the bill have come to light. But most of the complaints were about wrong readings. After which Kesco has started meter reading through OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to improve the billing system.
Electricity bills will be generated by capturing the photo of meter reading demand through OCR. There will be no possibility of human error in this. In the month of August, Kesco generated bills of 3,93,901 consumers using OCR technology on a trial basis. After getting positive results, it has been decided to continue it further.
Kesco is spending a budget of Rs 1 crore
Kesco is spending a budget of Rs 1 crore to improve the billing system. The billing work has been entrusted to KTL Company. This company has started making bills with OCR technology. Till now, meter readers were going door-to-door and checking billing irregularities by inserting cables into consumers' meters.
After receiving the complaint, Kesco got the investigation done, in which it was found that due to sunlight falling on the meter, the reading was not being done properly. Due to which there is a disturbance in the bill. After which Kesco started the trial of OCR. This new arrangement will provide relief to seven lakh 43 thousand consumers of Kesco.
Last year, the trial of OCR was held in Lucknow, after which now Kesco officials have decided to implement it.
This is how OCR billing happens
In OCR billing, the meter reader takes a photo of the meter reading and demand through the OCR app present in his mobile. After this, the reading is evaluated and automatic reading and demand is given through the app. The bill is prepared according to the reading. There is no possibility of human error in this.
These are the main reasons for errors in bills
- Errors occurred due to TDS table billing by the previous billing company.
- Meter readers did not check readings properly.
- Due to data transfer in the new software, errors occurred in the bills of 25 thousand consumers.
- Due to cancellation of the contract of TDS company and the process of new tender, reading could not be done on time.
- Due to faulty meters of three thousand consumers, billing could not be done properly.
OCR Billing has been introduced to eliminate billing related problems of consumers. OCR will eliminate errors in reading. In the month of August, 80% of OCR billing trials were successful. Samuel Paul N, Managing Director, KESCO