Madhya Pradesh / House help with bulb & table fan in her hut gets ₹2.5 lakh electricity bill in MP

Guna: A domestic help in Madhya Pradesh was shocked when she received an electricity bill of Rs 2.5 lakh. Rambai Prajapati, 65, who lives in a shanty in the Guna district of Madhya Pradesh, received the bill last month.

She has been running after the electricity department for the last seven days to get her bill corrected. However, the officials have not offered her any help.

Rambai has a bulb and a table fan in her hut. She used to get a monthly bill of Rs 300 to Rs 500. However, due to the lockdown, she could not deposit the bill for two months. And now, she has received a bill of Rs 2.5 lakh.

"I earn my living by working as a maid in other’s houses. I have a bulb and a table fan in my house. My bill has come to Rs 2.5 lakhs. This is incomprehensible. I have been coming to the electricity department for the last several days, but there is no one to listen," Rambai told News 18.

In February, an 80-year-old man received an electricity bill of nearly Rs 80 crore. He was rushed to the hospital with high blood pressure. Ganpat Naik was working in the mill when he received the power bill. Naik's grandson Niraj initially thought that they had been sent the entire district's bill.

However, when they rechecked and it was only their bill. They got scared because the electricity board has started recovering dues and arrears from everyone for the lockdown period.

When the electricity board looked into the issue, it was found out that there was an error in the bill. There was an inadvertent error by the agency that took the meter readings. The bill was corrected soon.