Government is screaming from rooftops for citizens to go digital and you insist on cash? Karnataka High Court to BESCOM

The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) to file an affidavit explaining why it was not permitting consumers to pay their bills using the unified interface payment (UPI)..Justice NS Sanjay Gowda said during the hearing,“You are making a consumer come to court and ask for a writ petition to be able to pay the bill? Someone is willing to pay the bill here. The government is screaming from the rooftops asking citizens to go digital and you want to go back in time to collect currency notes? It is rather strange that in this age and time BESCOM is refusing to accept money through UPI when the whole world is accepting payments through UPI.".The Court was hearing a petition filed by one Seethalakshmi for directions to BESCOM permit consumers to make payments for new electricity connections, prepaid meters etc using UPI.Advocate Shridhar Prabhu, appearing for the petitioner, told the Court that BESCOM had rejected his client's application for power supply and for providing a pre-payment meter. When the petitioner approached BESCOM and tried to pay the bill amount at the cash counter using UPI, she was told that such facility was not available..Counsel for BESCOM told the Court that currently, UPI payments are permitted only if a consumer uses the fast-track mode on the BESCOM app for bill payment.“They can sit at home and use UPI. But at the counter, they need to pay by cash and if the bill amount is higher than ₹10,000, then they need to give a demand draft. What happened (in the present case) was they want to avoid going to the bank for the DD and are insisting for a UPI scanner,” he said.Prabhu, however, said that several senior citizens, women, disabled persons and all sorts of consumers come to pay their bills, and giving them an option of UPI payment will make things easier..The Court asked BESCOM what was the logic behind insisting on cash. After directing the electricity supplier to file an affidavit to answer this question, the Court posted the matter for hearing on August 9.