- Sujal Pradhan, NET Correspondent, Sikkim
The Sikkim Power Department has cautioned the public against the new digital scam – a new tactic to dupe citizens, reminding them to pay the electricity bill, failing which their electricity connection will be suspended.
“This is not to make you panic and not to encourage you to skip paying your electricity bills, but be careful when you do so. Hackers have come up with a new tactic to dupe people and this time it involves your electricity bill. However, of late, people have reported getting messages on Text Messages and WhatsApp reminding them to pay the electricity bill, failing which their electricity connection will be suspended. The message is alarming enough to influence even a tech-savvy person to not give a second thought and make a payment immediately and taking this new scam seriously the power department today cautioned the public not to fall prey to the new scam,” – according to an official statement issued by the Power Department.
The Chief Engineer (Headquarter) of Power Department – Jigmey Namgyal “New Digital scam over the bill payment through SMS is going on in the market we have received many complaints and we even apprise the same to SP and we would also like to appeal to all our consumers to be vigilant of SMS scam over electricity bill payment as we never send any message for bill payment.”
The Principal Chief Engineer & Secretary of Power Department – Ganesh Chettri cautioned public to be aware and think many time before acting. While speaking on power cuts and delay in repairing work, he said “we are doing our best, our staffs are there in field and due to difficult terrain. He also said to ascertain the defect and main problem is the biggest challenge but we have raised this issues to centre also and by next year we will be able to provide 24/7 power supply.”
Meanwhile, the Superintendent Engineer (Expert for Prepaid electric metre) – ML Thakur shared “as many as 7372 prepaid electricity metres have been installed in Gangtok, while 626 in Mangan, 344 in Gayzing, 190 in Jorethang, 535 in Singtam and 528 in Rangpo.Alltogether 9650 metres have been installed in Sikkim till date which is 36.21%.”
Its worthy to note that the power department earlier announced about installing ‘Prepaid Electricity Smart Meters’ across all urban areas of Sikkim by 2021; but due to non cooperation from the public and other issues, they failed to do so and till date they has only covered 36 percent, and are planning to install all allocated machines as soon as possible.
The ‘Prepaid Energy Meters’ was officially launched by Chief Minister, Prem Singh Tamang at his official residence in Mintokgang on November 16, 2021.
