Consumer suffer as NESCO server stumbles

Complaints of customers of Northern Electricity Supply Company Plc (NESCO) regarding prepaid meters are very old. New sufferings have been added to the list of complaints. Customers in Bogura region are not able to recharge money from mobile banking to the meter. The advance money in the meter of many customers has also ended. They are now passing days without electricity. As a result, people's lives have become miserable in the prevailing intense heat.

The customers allege that this is happening due to the negligence of the authorities. However, NESCO says that this situation has arisen due to complications in the server. It will be resolved soon.

Customers complain that Nesco deducts excess money in advance from prepaid meters. Meanwhile, recharge from mobile financial service (MFS) like Bkash, Cash and Rocket is not possible. Many had taken loan from the meter earlier, that money is also gone. Even if the money can be recharged at certain times of the day, it is not enough compared to the needs of customer.

Customers also said that this problem has been going on for the last four days.

Carpenter Saju Pramanik, a resident of Jahangirabad Phultala area of Bogura, said there is no electricity in my house. Meter cannot be recharged. It also takes time to go to the NESCO office after work and recharge the meter.

Rana Pramanik and Arju Begum of the same area said, “We went to NESCO office and recharged money in the meter. We suffered a lot due to overcrowding.”

Zakir Hossain and Tarek Rahman, along with several agents of mobile banking in Bogura, said that NESCO's server works sometimes, but after a few hours, it is down again. This has been happening since last Sunday. This problem needs a permanent solution.

NESCO Supervising Engineer (Bogura Circle) Md Golam Mostafa told View Bangladesh that this is happening because of a major technical problem on Nesco's server. “We are hoping to gradually recharge the meter from Bkash, Cash and Rocket from Wednesday evening onwards. At present the meter is being recharged from our local offices” he said.