BESCOM and police officials visit the building in Kalasipalya on Tuesday where a fire at a bar killed five people on Monday | Vinod Kumar T
BENGALURU: Electricity consumers in Bengaluru and surrounding districts will now be able to get new connections, change the name on their connections or apply for a tariff change online from Wednesday and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) will ensure that the requests are processed at the earliest, in some cases, as fast as 24 hours instead of the earlier waiting period of around 30 days.
The Savi-Kirana scheme or fast-track services by BESCOM, which was running so far on a pilot mode, will be launched for all areas by Energy Minister D K Shivakumar on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Shivakumar made an announcement to this effect in the Legislative Council and said that the process of giving connections would be expedited. This will be achieved by doing away with lengthy procedures like making the customer visit the BESCOM office three times to pay the fee as well as making it compulsory to provide details of a licenced contractor who undertook work on the project during construction.
A senior official from BESCOM said, “The forms have been simplified after clearance from the electricity regulator. We have done away with the requirement of a licenced contractor, taken the procedure online and ensured that the consumer only visits the BESCOM office once. A fixed fee for all procedures will be collected in one go and the BESCOM team will also visit the site to provide new connections.”
The official further said that the reduced time frame of 24 hours would be strictly adhered to.
“There will be a fixed time frame for name change, tariff change and addition and reduction of load ... these applications can also be tracked online through the BESCOM website.”
