look news india
UPPCL: Consumers get upset due to wrong electricity bills and keep visiting the office. So far, different reasons have come to light for the error in the bill. 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 clicking photos of the meter reading demand through OCR. There will be no possibility of human error in this. In the month of August, Kesco generated bills for 3,93,901 consumers using OCR technology on a trial basis. After getting positive results, it has been decided to continue this further.
Kesco is spending a budget of one crore rupees
Kesco is spending a budget of Rs 1 crore to improve the billing system. The billing work has been handed over to KTL company. This company has started making bills using OCR technology. Till now, meter readers were going door-to-door and checking billing irregularities by inserting cables in consumers' meters.
After receiving the complaint, Kesco conducted an investigation, which revealed that the readings are not correct due to sunlight falling on the meter. Due to which there is a discrepancy in the bills. After which Kesco started the trial of OCR. This new system will provide relief to seven lakh 43 thousand consumers of Kesco.
Last year, the trial of OCR was conducted in Lucknow, after which Kesco officials have now 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 and demand are automatically generated through the app after evaluating the reading. The bill is generated according to the reading. There is no possibility of human error in this.
These are the main reasons for errors in the bill
- The errors were caused by TDS table billing done by the previous billing company.
- The meter readers did not take the check reading properly.
- Due to data transfer in the new software, errors occurred in the bills of 25 thousand consumers.
- Due to cancellation of contract of TDS company and process of new tender, the reading could not be done on time.
- Billing could not be done properly due to malfunctioning of meters of three thousand consumers.
OCR billing has been started to eliminate billing problems of consumers. OCR will eliminate errors in reading. In the month of August, 80% successful trial of OCR billing was done. Samuel Pal N, Managing Director, KESCO