Bengaluru: Bescom is spending hundreds of crores on its IT infrastructure, but technical glitches continue to haunt its consumers. Hundreds of electricity consumers, who had November 12 and 13 as last dates for their power bills, found it difficult to pay online and were forced to visit Bengaluru One Centres and local Bescom offices.
Consumers complained that they have not been able to pay bills online for unknown reasons and that the problem had been persisting for some time now. The issue had not been resolved for a number of consumers till Saturday morning. A few could make online payments on Friday evening. But long queues were found in front of Bescom bill payment kiosks and Bengaluru One centres.
“For the last one week, consumers have been receiving an error message which says, ‘The application has encountered some problem. Please wait for some time and try again’. That could be because the power utility may not have adopted advanced servers to cater to its large number of customers. It has enabled a number of mobile apps to pay bills online, but has not kept pace with the rush,” analysed Mr Rakshith N., who pays his power bills online regularly.
Mr Bharath A., a software professional from Jayanagar, said that he generally paid electricity bills on the last date through Google Pay or other mobile apps. “Every month I do it. But this month, I have not been successful, though I have been trying since Monday. I keep getting the error message,” he said.
Many consumers said that it is not the first time that they faced such problems and have complained to Bescom. They also said that many a time, though they pay online, it does not reflect in their next bill.
Despite repeated attempts, Deccan Chronicle could not reach Bescom officials in charge.
