BPC to reissue bills

The Bhutan Power Corporation Limited (BPC) said it has been receiving numerous complaints regarding the –electricity bill amount for the bills raised after the 2nd nationwide lockdown.

As a part of BPC’s COVID-19 contingency plan and standard operating procedure (SoP), BPC resorted to the average billing of the customers during the lockdown period. The bills for January 2021 were prepared based on the average consumption of the past three months. Further, these bills could not be delivered which lead to non-payment of bills and levy of late payment surcharge. The average billing was adopted predominantly for Thimphu and Paro. The same procedure was followed during the 1st nationwide lockdown in August 2020.

When the lockdown was relaxed, the February bill was prepared on actual meter reading which reflected the increased energy consumption that was not accounted for in the average bill of January.

Additionally, the bills also reflected the outstanding of the previous bills including the late payment charges (penalty). As was done for the 1st lockdown period, the same shall be waived off the last two-tariff cycles and adjusted accordingly.

As the meter reading for February month has captured actual consumption for two months, the total consumption will be equally distributed for January and February bill cycle to ensure that the block-wise benefits as per the tariff structure are applied.

The revised bills for the January and February months shall be issued at the earliest. For customers who had already cleared the bills, the adjustment will be made in the subsequent bills.