Maharashtra Man Pays Power Bill Using Coins — All Rs 7,160 Of It
An electricity consumer in Washim Maharashtra paid a Rs 7,160 bill using 40 kg of coins. MahaVitaran employees spent five hours counting the coins.
A man from Washim gave the employees of MahaVitaran or the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited their worst nightmare — a bill paid in coins. In the unusual incident from Washim, Maharashtra, an electricity consumer from Risod paid a Rs 7,160 electricity bill to the MahaVitaran power distribution company using coins in denominations of Re 1 and Rs 2. The total weight of the coins was approximately 40 kilograms.
Employees of the MahaVitaran had to transport the coins from the customer's location to their office, covering a distance of one kilometre on a two-wheeler. Three employees — Prashant Thote (cashier), Uddhav Gajbhar (lineman), and Atul Ther (contract worker) — spent nearly five hours counting the coins.
The process proved to be physically demanding. Even in the cold weather, the employees were left sweating due to the strenuous task of counting the huge number of coins. However, as the coins were in circulation, the MahaVitaran staff had no right to refuse the customer’s payment method.
A similar incident occurred in Kollam, Karnataka, in November 2023 when a man, who was frustrated with the constant power cuts and poor service by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), paid his power bill in coins. He collected the bills of eight other households in coins as well and deposited the amount with the KSEB. The total amount deposited was around Rs 10,000.
Tired of constant power cuts and poor service by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), this ward member from Kollam, gave a nice job to KSEB employees by collecting Electricity bill of 9 families from his ward (~Rs 10k) in coins and paid. pic.twitter.com/SbsIbeKcFI
— നചികേതസ് (@nach1keta) November 15, 2023
The man, C Renjith, was a Bharatiya Janata Party member.
Can Electricity Bills Be Paid Using Coins?
In a 2021 ruling, the Additional District Consumer Disputes Forum in Nagpur, Maharashtra, had said that no one could deposit coins worth over Rs1,000 per day, as per the Coinage Act, 2011.
The forum had then dismissed a case, which involved a man who wanted to pay his bill of around Rs 36,000 using coins. However, since there was no legal provision of paying the power bill in instalments, his plea was dismissed.
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