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Agartala: The Tripura government has ordered officials to stop collecting payments on electricity bills, dated May 2026 onwards, that were flagged as abnormally high, after weeks of highway blockades, gherao (encirclement) of power offices and a mass arrest drive left the state’s ruling coalition scrambling to contain the fallout.

On August 10 alone, farmers’ body Samyukt Kisan Morcha said as many as 6,000 people were arrested in Agartala during a “Jail Bharo” protest called jointly by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and allied unions, as part of a wider agitation over a troubled smart-meter rollout and steep tariff hikes.

The dispute has pitted Tripura’s current and former power ministers against each other in public. Current minister Ratan Lal Nath and his predecessor Manik Dey held back-to-back press conferences, each blaming the other’s tenure for a project that a state audit found had largely stopped working within months of installation. Caught in between are consumers across the state who say their bills bear no relation to how much electricity they actually use.

Over the past two months, consumers from small shopkeepers to solar-powered households have reported bills that appear far more inflated than their actual electricity use. The Wire spoke to two of them directly; both received bills running into lakhs of rupees before the amounts were sharply revised downward.

Bills running into lakhs, later revised

The first such bill belonged to M/S Shefali Petroleum Agency, a commercial connection at Saidabari in Kumarghat sub-division. It recorded a contracted load of 1,740 kW, a fixed charge of Rs 3,48,000, energy charges of Rs 6,136.78 and electricity duty of Rs 26,552.42. The net payable after due date stood at Rs 3,96,075.

Police resisting protesters during the “Jail Bharo” protest, Photo: Rahul Namasudra.

Speaking to The Wire on August 13, agency owner Tapash Das confirmed, “The bill has been corrected after I raised a complaint at my local Tripura State Electricity Corporation Limited (TSECL) office. I got the revised bill afterward and the revised amount came to Rs 16,400, something like that.” The original load figure of 1,740 kW was revised to just 8 kW.

The second bill, for a domestic connection registered to Binoy Bhoshan Chakraborty at East Barjala in Agartala, showed a contracted load of 2,796 kW against actual consumption of only 151.17 units. Fixed charge alone was Rs 3,49,500, and the gross payable reached Rs 3,74,098. With the delayed payment surcharge added, it rose to Rs 3,81,224.

Ashish Chakraborty, who manages the billing, said the household’s actual load was 7 kW. “Then it showed my load as being something above 2,000. That means they’ve applied the load of an entire factory in my house’s name,” he told The Wire on August 13. After he raised the issue, the bill was adjusted the same day to “Rs 8,000, something like that.”

According to the Tripura Electricity Regulatory Commission (TERC), fixed charges for domestic and most commercial consumers were shifted to connected-load basis (Rs per kW per month) charges. Several abnormalities in the bills that triggered protests were, thus, linked to incorrect contracted load figures.

Hidden charges that cost more than the power

In Bishalgarh, social activist Nani Gopal Debnath paid Rs 4,000 in cash for a prepaid recharge on May 23, 2026, (Receipt No. 6626502) but received only 185.6 units. Of that amount, Rs 2,674 went toward usable balance, with the rest absorbed into clearing a reconciliation bill and arrears.

Sharing the receipt, Debnath demanded, “Simply charge Rs 8, Rs 9 or Rs 10 per unit, but stop all these hidden charges in the name of bills.”

Similar complaints have poured in from across the state. Priyanka Datta, a content creator from Amarpur sub-division, shared a video on her official social media handle on August 8. She said her family paid Rs 1,000 but received only 26 units. “Who in their right mind would pay Rs 1,000 for 26 units?” she asked.

Protesters holding banners and flags during the “Jail Bharo” protest, Photo: Rahul Namasudra.

Similar anomalies have surfaced across the state, hitting small businesses and domestic users alike. Across Bishalgarh, Amarpur and Dharmanagar, multiple consumers reported receiving single-digit units for prepaid recharges exceeding Rs 1,000. In several instances, businesses with near-zero consumption and even closed shops received bills upwards of Rs 500, with fixed charges and “sundry” fees entirely eating up their payments.

Solar consumers have not been spared. Dipto Pal, who installed rooftop panels under the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, saw zero difference between........

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