Fire Safety Equipment Should Not Be Included In Connected Load-Says Bescom

This is a success story of Brigade Millennium Mayflower block Residents Association, represented by Arathi Manay Yajaman who challenged BESCOM which included Fire safety equipment in connected load and imposed penalty for ‘unauthorized load’ for apartments in the city. Thank you Ms. Arathi for contributing the story to CommonFloor.com

BESCOM Notice imposing penalty for unauthorized load

The Connected load is the total load that a consumer can impose on the electrical system if everything was connected at one time. According to BESCOM, Brigade Millennium Mayflower– one of the popular Residential Developments in J.P Nagar neighborhood of Bangalore- had connected load of 177.85KW which is in excess of the sanctioned load of 99.47KW. As a result of this, the apartment complex had ‘unauthorized load’ of load of 78.38KW. BESCOM issued notice to their consumers which imposed penalty for ‘unauthorized load’.

In Aug 2010, Brigade Millennium Association received a notice which imposed penalty for ‘unauthorized load’. BESCOM imposed Rs 29,484/- as back billing penalties and added monthly penalty charges of Rs 4680/- until the unauthorized load was either removed or extra sanctioned load was obtained. Similar notice was sent to all apartment complexes in the city. Under protest as they feared disconnection of power supply, the association paid the penalty.

Truth about unauthorized load

According to Arathi, Brigade Millennium had the load arising out of the lifts in the building amounts to about 60kW, the lights, water pumps and other equipment about 28kW. This makes about 88kW. Their sanctioned load was 99.47KW. But the BESCOM had also included fire hydrant pumps of 15KW and 75KW which combined load of about 90KW which made about 178KW (88+90 KW). The association checked with their builder on the reason for the load of the fire pumps not being included in the sanctioned load at the time of completion. The builder responded by saying that the fire safety equipment is kept on standby only and is not a part of the day-to-day regular power requirements of the building.

The association, represented by Arathi, also found that the fire system configuration and fire fighting protocol is such that lifts and other electrical equipment are switched off in the event of a fire. Also, during any fire accident all the power utilities need to be shut down as a measure of safety. The issue of all the equipment being used ‘simultaneously’ does not arise. Therefore the usage of fire hydrant pumps during a fire will not exceed the total load in case of a fire accident and hence there is no issue of excess/ unauthorized load.

Fighting against BESCOM’s injustice

The Brigade Millennium Mayflower block residents association wrote to BESCOM before the deadline on 30-Aug-10 filing the objections to the inclusion of fire pumps in the sanctioned load, based on clarifications received from the builder. After filing written objections, they also met with the engineer at BESCOM to reiterate they position but they explanations were not accepted.  On 23-Nov-2010, they sent a written reminder to BESCOM. Despite this, they did not receive any reply but BESCOM continued to impose penalty in their monthly bills.

Since no reply was forthcoming from BESCOM, Brigade Millennium association wrote to the MD-BESCOM. Soon after this, the BESCOM engineers responded by inspecting Brigade Millennium Mayflower premises on 7-Dec-2010. The association received a reply dated 8-Dec-2010 from BESCOM on 12-Dec-2010 in which they rejected the appeals. BESCOM continues to impose penalty charges and association continued paying under protest fearing disconnection of power supply. In the mean time, worried residents who had received the same notices started contacting Brigade Millennium association for knowing what next.

Way for the Hope

But Arathi & association did not give up. They collected more information about calculation of connected load in Bangalore and in neighboring states. . They had also researched rules in other states in preparing their case. Finally they took the matter up with the State’s Power Regulator-Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC).

Arathi wrote to the KERC on December 13th pointing out the issue with BESCOM’s definition of ‘connected load’ and faulty interpretation by including fire safety equipment in calculation of ‘connected load’.

Success

Finally Brigade Millennium Association succeeded in reversing or invalidating the penalty imposed by BESCOM. The KERC sent BESCOM a notice on 24th December asking the BESCOM to look into Arathi’s complaint. The Bescom revised its position and sent its letter to Brigade Millennium Mayflower residents association confirming that since the fire safety equipment would not be used regularly, it should not be considered as excess load.

The letter, bring much awaited relief to residents and all multistorey buildings in the city who received the notice from Bescom. Arathi who tried to reverse the penalty charged by Besom for Brigade Millennium ended in reversing not only for Brigade Millennium but also for all apartment complex in the city with fire safety equipments. Bescom assured apartment owners association that the penalties which they had paid will be refunded and they need not required to apply for increased load. However refunds may not be made immediately, as the paperwork involved will take some time to get approved said Bescom official.