How can I find out who is stealing electricity?
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rdst_1
Juggernaut
BTW, has anyone over here, who is working from home, asked your employers to compensate for high electrical usage. My brother and his 2 roommates received a bill of 36k for last 3 months in Hyderabad. Bill was accurate and their usage had obviously skyrocketed due to using 3 ACs and 3 high end PCs at home.
nRiTeCh
Oracle
Nope but only internet bills that too capped to 500 bucks per month, shamingly sic!
Kaleen Bhaiya
Innovator
Another fall out of Covid. The increased usage should be reimbursed through salary or some other means.
But given how companies are impacted and now the cost of maintaining a building/commercial enterprise falls from employer to employee, companies see a chance of making profit... There is little doubt that they would do it given the situation.
But given how companies are impacted and now the cost of maintaining a building/commercial enterprise falls from employer to employee, companies see a chance of making profit... There is little doubt that they would do it given the situation.
adventureguy
Innovator
36k for 3 months for 3 ACs is fair imo. My friends with 2 ACs got around 8k~10k bills per month. (hyd here too)
rdst_1
Juggernaut
Yeah. The bill was definitely accurate. Out of the 3 months they were going to office for 1 month. I think Telangana also has one of the highest tariffs in the country. My question was about compensation. I know many companies are not providing TA these days because employees don't have to travel to office but they aren't compensating for higher electrical or internet costs. I think most people who are working from home will agree that working ftom home is actually more hectic and straining and less productive than regular working from office days. My aunt who is a teacher has so much extra work load that she is working extra 3-4 hours everyday and has no time to do any work around the house. Thankfully her husband is retired but think about someone who is a teacher and also has kids of her own.
Rezep
Galvanizer
Tariffs are actually way higher these days everywhere. My bill used to be only 1500-1700 per month for a family of 4 in a basic 2bhk apartment, no AC cause bangalore 
Lights are on in living room and bedroom if occupied because there isn't much sunlight, but these past few months the bill has increased for everyone, my neighbour got a bill for 3k when he usually got 2k. When we complaint to the office they told us there was no mistake on their side and we just decided to pay. If i complaint and didn't pay for it, the only person who will be losing will be me when they cut off my power
Lights are on in living room and bedroom if occupied because there isn't much sunlight, but these past few months the bill has increased for everyone, my neighbour got a bill for 3k when he usually got 2k. When we complaint to the office they told us there was no mistake on their side and we just decided to pay. If i complaint and didn't pay for it, the only person who will be losing will be me when they cut off my power
rdst_1
Juggernaut
Has the govt increased the Tarrifs recently in your state. In my state, govt reduced subsidy, thereby increasing tarrifs for the highest category(above 300 units) by Re 1, but the new tariffs are applicable from this month.Tariffs are actually way higher these days everywhere. My bill used to be only 1500-1700 per month for a family of 4 in a basic 2bhk apartment, no AC cause bangalore [emoji14] Lights are on in living room and bedroom if occupied because there isn't much sunlight, but these past few months the bill has increased for everyone, my neighbour got a bill for 3k when he usually got 2k. When we complaint to the office they told us there was no mistake on their side and we just decided to pay. If i complaint and didn't pay for it, the only person who will be losing will be me when they cut off my power
I somehow fail to understand the logic when employees ask for Internet and Electricity to be reimbursed. Even I am from Hyderabad and my company too does not pay for any of these. At one time we used to get Internet and mobile phone reimbursed but now they have removed it as it is deemed as basic as water and electricity at home. There really is no additional expense in terms of Internet. In fact I was using a Helea Smart Plug to measure the power consumption on my laptop which is on 24x7 (does not go to sleep unless I make it to). I see that the consumption ranges between 260 t 270 watts per day. This would translate to 8 units per month. At my slab it would come to around Rs 76/month. This is for running 24x7. If I really let it sleep during non working hours and weekends then I would incur less than Rs 25/month. Now do you really want your company pay Rs 25/month for the electricity!!!
Eventually companies look at CTC (cost to company). If you want them to reimburse the cost of electricity then they will adjust it somewhere else to ensure the CTC does not increase the budget.
FYI: I have taken up a backup internet connection (Hathway) on top of my regular Airtel connection. That of course is an additional expense (Rs 400/month) I incur but then the internet usage has increased at my place because everyone now watches OTT a lot during the lockdown. My company has a simple policy. If you cannot work from home then you should use up your leaves. Paying for backup internet connection is way cheaper than forgoing leaves. In fact I have suggested my colleagues to go buy Inverter/UPS as they are expected to be enabled to work from home. We are thankful that our company is doing good despite the hard times and treating us very well.
Many of my colleagues have vacated their rented apartments/houses and moved back to their family homes in other town/cities. Now are they going to pay the savings to the company?
Eventually companies look at CTC (cost to company). If you want them to reimburse the cost of electricity then they will adjust it somewhere else to ensure the CTC does not increase the budget.
FYI: I have taken up a backup internet connection (Hathway) on top of my regular Airtel connection. That of course is an additional expense (Rs 400/month) I incur but then the internet usage has increased at my place because everyone now watches OTT a lot during the lockdown. My company has a simple policy. If you cannot work from home then you should use up your leaves. Paying for backup internet connection is way cheaper than forgoing leaves. In fact I have suggested my colleagues to go buy Inverter/UPS as they are expected to be enabled to work from home. We are thankful that our company is doing good despite the hard times and treating us very well.
Many of my colleagues have vacated their rented apartments/houses and moved back to their family homes in other town/cities. Now are they going to pay the savings to the company?
rdst_1
Juggernaut
I am talking about cases where the company is not paying TA, like in case of my aunt. If they can apply logic that they don't have to pay TA because the employee is no longer travelling then why they fail to apply logic when it comes to the electricity expense of an AC running extra for those 6-7 hours. Also the teachers are now working extra 2-3 hrs everyday because many many schools had no digital database of teaching modules.
You very conveniently only added cost of running a laptop whereas majot electricity charge is running AC for that time. In case of my brother, he had to run a full PC with a 1080ti as he is a game developer alongwith running an AC. And this after his company had halved their salaries. Of course his case can't be applied to all but still in every case the extra cost of running an AC for extra 8-12 hrs a day is for sure an extra expense. Maybe your company was great and continued paying you the same CTC, but I know many companies stopped paying TA to the employees.
Kaleen Bhaiya
Innovator
Ditto is the case with my aunt. She said they were given a seminar about using Meet, Google classroom about two years ago but that was very rudimentary. When you actually started using those softwares you realise most of the things you need to learn on your own. So she spent more than 10-12 hours everyday learning about those softwares, running both her laptops ( some problems), using air conditioners (Nagpur gets equally hot as Hyderabad).
All this with half the salary because some parents have decided to drop a year, some reluctance to pay higher fees(this proposal was way earlier), increase in net package (not a huge amount, but still).
Point is Wfm does add additional expenses especially on the electricity component. Given the situation companies or organisations may be reluctant but atleast some part should be reimbursed at a later stage.
Who is forcing you to run ACs? You are using it for your own comfort. Next, are you going to ask your company to buy an AC if you do not have one at home? People should be thanking their stars that they still have a job and getting almost full salary. I just cannot understand this feeling of entitlement. Do you really think you are doing a favour to your company by working from home? At least in my case my company can easily replace me with someone else.
rdst_1
Juggernaut
Maybe in your case they can. But not in our cases. Hence the feeling of entitlement. That's why I asked specifically if someone's company was doing that. Why did you have to feel threatened? If there is an AC in the workplace, then how does it matter. I am not talking illogically.
My brother is working in a startup at nearly half of what he could get in the market. Their company already had budget allocated for next 3 years from the parent investor. So now when he is not getting the promised raise, made to work at half salary, the least the company can do is pay for their electricity. Anyhow, it's the company's loss. He is already looking to move and has given interviews abroad. It will be a bit cumbersome to manage visa formalities during this crisid but this is a welcome change of events for him.
My brother is working in a startup at nearly half of what he could get in the market. Their company already had budget allocated for next 3 years from the parent investor. So now when he is not getting the promised raise, made to work at half salary, the least the company can do is pay for their electricity. Anyhow, it's the company's loss. He is already looking to move and has given interviews abroad. It will be a bit cumbersome to manage visa formalities during this crisid but this is a welcome change of events for him.
Rezep
Galvanizer
That's the thing, no one has any idea. The news did talk about the tariff increase for a while, but hell news cycles they change and it seems everyone forgets. It first started in may when the employees couldn't come for meter check during the 2 month lockdown (which was actually the safest period to actually check) and they decided to use some sort of system to find out the average from the 3 months where there was no bill and charge that. Close to everyone got screwed, office buildings which would have not been occupied at all during the lockdown were charged even more than before and even bachelors who pay less than 1k per month usually are shelling out more on an average now
Bengaluru citizens outraged over huge electricity bills, officials explain reason
Officials said among the reasons for the higher bills is the fact that people are working from homes due to the lockdown.
indianexpress.com
I really pity those who think they are indispensable to an organization. If a company is taking advantage of a situation at the cost of the employees then it is not the place to work for in the first place. Good for your brother that he will be moving out of such a company.
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That's the thing, no one has any idea. The news did talk about the tariff increase for a while, but hell news cycles they change and it seems everyone forgets. It first started in may when the employees couldn't come for meter check during the 2 month lockdown (which was actually the safest period to actually check) and they decided to use some sort of system to find out the average from the 3 months where there was no bill and charge that. Close to everyone got screwed, office buildings which would have not been occupied at all during the lockdown were charged even more than before and even bachelors who pay less than 1k per month usually are shelling out more on an average now
This was in may. No person in my family is using a computer except for me and it isn't a beefy one either. Honestly i think the government is just trying to squeeze anything they can for revenue now. Weird times we live in, prices of commodities and basic facilities are getting more expensive while income is getting reducedBengaluru citizens outraged over huge electricity bills, officials explain reason
Officials said among the reasons for the higher bills is the fact that people are working from homes due to the lockdown.
I don't know where you are from but in Telangana the reason for high bills was due to the telescopic billing. People generally consume more electricity in the months of April and May. When they took the meter reading for Mar-May they simply divided the total units across all the months. Due to the telescopic billing someone who used to consume less than 200 units suddenly moved out of the 0-200 bracket and moved to 0-300 bracket and so on.
@6pack One easy way to check is to turn off everything in your home and and then go down to the meter and see if the meter is still ticking. In ahmedabad torrent power is pretty good. Last year I had guests over at my place during summer. The bill spiked from from 300-400 to almost 2500 units. They came with lots of equipment and made sure there was no fault in their meters.
Ka government last increased the tariff in 2019, I keep monitoring the slab rates, fuel adjustment charges in bescom bill.That's the thing, no one has any idea. The news did talk about the tariff increase for a while, but hell news cycles they change and it seems everyone forgets. It first started in may when the employees couldn't come for meter check during the 2 month lockdown (which was actually the safest period to actually check) and they decided to use some sort of system to find out the average from the 3 months where there was no bill and charge that. Close to everyone got screwed, office buildings which would have not been occupied at all during the lockdown were charged even more than before and even bachelors who pay less than 1k per month usually are shelling out more on an average now
This was in may. No person in my family is using a computer except for me and it isn't a beefy one either. Honestly i think the government is just trying to squeeze anything they can for revenue now. Weird times we live in, prices of commodities and basic facilities are getting more expensive while income is getting reducedBengaluru citizens outraged over huge electricity bills, officials explain reason
Officials said among the reasons for the higher bills is the fact that people are working from homes due to the lockdown.
Because of work from home, we have increased use of laptop/desktops, phones are always charging in house (vs in work or in car), fans running, increased microwave/convection oven usage for snacks. Increased Tv usuage, more water utilization which means pump runs more, water purifer runs more. Hence you will notice increased power bills vs previous summer bill.
Some noob bescom consumers like my neigbours compared the difference in march bill vs may bill. March bill is actually for the month of feb which was relatively cooler, May bill includes usuage of march and april +hotter summer meaning usuage of air con, increased fridge consumptions and reasons above of working from home.
Bescom for the majority adjusted the slabs units correctly.
In Maharastra, except Mumbai?, everywhere is monopoly of MSEDCL - a govt company. They only care about taking money and doing least amount of work. Every fault is passed onto the customer. Meter fault - customer is lying etc. Govt won't allow private companies to sell power because their voter base of farmers who get free electricity will go away. Ministers exist to make life miserable only.
N
NotMyRealName
It's the same everywhere man, all electricity boards are crooks. I've been living at the village with the flat unoccupied and only the fridge running. Last month's bill though they changed meter condition to suspected fault. Probably because it was just 31 units. Neither 0 nor normal household usage. So they applied an average reading of 50 units. More than the extra units applied i was worried about the fault status so i went to the office and informed them that the low reading is because only the fridge was running. They promised to correct it.
And today they sent a guy with another meter to replace the old. I asked him are you sure the old one is faulty and he says look there's a shadow on the LCD. This in spite of the display functioning perfectly.
They will probably charge me for the new meter too now.
This is an apartment building but in Jan they applied a door locked to the meter status and next bill charged me 243 bucks for that. All the meters are openly accessible so there's no chance of 'door locked'
And today they sent a guy with another meter to replace the old. I asked him are you sure the old one is faulty and he says look there's a shadow on the LCD. This in spite of the display functioning perfectly.
They will probably charge me for the new meter too now.
This is an apartment building but in Jan they applied a door locked to the meter status and next bill charged me 243 bucks for that. All the meters are openly accessible so there's no chance of 'door locked'
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