Aurangabad: On one hand the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) has been promoting online bill payment system, while on the other it has failed to initiate any action in connection with the major technical glitch in the system. The problem was however restored on Thursday.The online bill payment facility available on www.mahadiscom.in was down for five days till Wednesday as the main server located in Mumbai was down owing to technical issues.As the service got restored, the MSEDCL has extended the prompt payment date or due date falling during the period of major lapse by a day till Friday. Consumers’ representative on Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) Hemant Kapadia said the MSEDCL should take serious cognisance of abrupt shutdown of its online bill payment system.“The system was down for as many as five days and therefor it is considered as major lapse. The state power utility should take stern action against those who were responsible for such technical glitch that affected scores of consumers,” he said.Renuka Beedkar, a consumer from N-11 area, accused the MSEDCL for keeping consumers in dark about when the facility would be restored.“The server was down for five days and no extension for prompt pay benefit has been given in such time proportion. I got a message on Thursday evening that my due date has been extended only by a day till tomorrow,” she said, accusing MSEDCL for taking consumers for granted.When contacted, P S Patil, central public relation officer of MSEDCL, said the top-brass of the state power utility would take policy decision for taking action against those who were responsible for failure of online bill payment system.“We will update the top-brass about the strong feelings from stakeholders. Since it was public holiday on Thursday no official discussion could take place on the issue encountered in online system,” he said.The MSEDCL, which has been pressing for use of online bill payment facilities among consumers, had collected Rs 81.57 Crore using such different modern platforms during month of June from Aurangabad region.In a move aimed at making online gateway popular among consumers, the MSEDCL last month had announced waiver in the processing charges that were applicable on such mode of payment.All types of online payment gateways including debit card, digital wallets, cash card and Unified Payments Interface (UPIs) have been exempted from processing charges. However, payment through credit card will continue to charge processing charges.For bill payment upto Rs 2,000, the MSEDCL used to charge 0.62% towards processing charges, whereas it was 0.82% per cent for payment above Rs 2,000. These processing charges are no more applicable for online payment now.

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