TANGEDCO to rationalise collection offices, joins Bharat BillPay platform

CHENNAI : As the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) flashed the green flag for payments through Bharat BillPay on Monday, the state body said it expects to migrate about 50 per cent of Low Tension (LT) customers to payment methods like net banking and online payments.
Low Tension bill payers are usually customers who consume electricity units for their residential property or for the functioning of smaller commercial sites like shops.

As consumers ditch the trip to electricity bill payment offices and opt for alternative modes of payment, the state electricity board would be able to reduce the number of collection centres operational across the state from 5,000 to 2,000 in a period of two years, thereby saving nearly ` 120 crore.“The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) is the first state body to be on-boarded to Bharat BillPay. TNEB witnesses the highest number of customers paying their electricity bill through alternate payments. Only in the last month, net banking payments through Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank scored the maximum number of hits, churning more than `61 crore income to TNEB,” said M Manoharan, Director Finance, TANGEDCO.

Bharat BillPay, a payment portal managed by the National Payments Corporation of India, has witnessed a massive 75 per cent growth over the last year, as it has been adding billers like state bodies for LPG, water tax and DTH operators to its kitty. The payments company said it expects to add electricity boards of states like Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha in the coming months.

Indian Overseas Bank, which on-boarded the state electricity board to the Bharat BillPay platform, said it expects to board more billers to the payment platform. “Payment defaults have also come down from five per cent to three per cent as a result of online payments and SMS reminders from TNEB. With Bharat Bill Pay, we expect the number of online payments to increase to one crore customers from the current 28 per cent or 45,00,000,” Manoharan said.

“With Centr’s insistence to promote alternative modes of bill payment, we have already started merging collection counters across Chennai,” he said.Currently, 61 banks and 10 non-bank entities like Mobikwik, consumer-facing organisations function as Bharat BillPay Operating Units across the country.