Jharkhand Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (JBVNL) will restart meter readings through a private agency during the lockdown after its self-billing system failed in the Singhbhum region.

The power Discom had introduced the self-billing system by launching an app on April 23 to evade spread of novel coronavirus but decided to revert to the old system after consumers did not respond positively to self-billing.

The JBVNL failed to meet the monthly revenue-generation target because only 1,200 out of 5.7 lakh consumers responded to the self-billing system.

According to the new system, a consumer had to take a picture of the meter reading and pay the bill amount online to the JBVNL. So meter readers need not visit the houses.

Arvind Kumar, general manager of JBVNL’s Singhbhum electricity supply area, said the Discom had introduced the self-billing system on April 23 keeping social-distancing norms in mind.

“But by April 30, we could realise that the self-billing system will not work as a very negligible number of consumers responded to the system. Then we had to generate average bills of about 5.7 lakh consumers for April of the consumers who did not respond to the self-billing app. As the average-billing system was meant only for April, we decided to return to the old system,” Arvind said.

He added that to restart the meter reading work, the Discom has approached the district administration to issue passes for more than 250 meter readers.

He said the administration has provided the passes to meter readers in Jamshedpur, Mango, Adityapur and Seraikela divisions, and passes for the Ghatshila division are being made.

The general manager said meter reading and bill generation is done by private agency Quess Corporation Ltd in most of JBVNL’s Singhbhum division that encompasses East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan districts.

According to JBVNL sources, around Rs 25 crore is collected every month from the domestic consumers from the Jamshedpur circle of the Discom, but after the self-billing system was introduced only a little over Rs 5 lakh could be collected.

Ranjeet Kumar, assistant manager of Quess Corporation Ltd, said they would start reading meters shortly.

“We are training the meter readers on how to visit the consumers’ houses during the lockdown. The readers will constantly sanitise their hands and also maintain social distance while visiting the consumers’ houses,” said Ranjit.