How to change the name in BESCOM electricity bill?

Ok, you have completed the registration of your newly bought house/apartment in Bengaluru. What next? Changing the names in BESCOM electricity bill and BWSSB water bill must be your priority, which once done, would immediately serve as a address proof to your new residence. Explained here is the detailed procedure to change the name in BESCOM electricity bill or transfer of BESCOM electricity connection.

Documents required for change of name in BESCOM electricity bill :

• Application from present owner : You can get the application pdf file from BESCOM website, which also contains NOC, Indemnity Bond, Power Supply Agreement
• NOC from previous owner : (NOC - No objection certficate, this is required for the transfer of deposits which would be in previous owner's name) - present in the pdf file link above.
• Indemnity Bond (for transfer of installation) - present in pdf file link above. 
• Power Supply Agreement - present in pdf file link above. 
• Photocopy of Sale Deed
• Photocopy of Khata certificate
• Photocopy of Tax Paid Receipt for the current financial year
• Field Report From JE O & M (This has to be prepared and signed by Junior Engineer, process of which is explained below)
• Blank File
• Original Verified/Bank Letter

Following are the steps to follow for the change of name in BESCOM electricity bill :

1. Procure the required documents :
• For Application from present owner(1st two pages) and NOC from previous owner(8th page) - print the documents from BESCOM website and fill in the details. In case of an apartment, get the NOC from the builder.
• Get the photocopies of Sale deed, Khata certificate and Tax Paid Receipt for the current financial year
• Indemnity Bond Transfer(for transfer of installation), Power Supply Agreement will not be available in BESCOM office. They will be available in Karnataka State Licensed Electrical Contractors Association office, which would generally be near to BESCOM office. These documents along with the blank file would be provided by their office. You need to pay around Rs.400 for these documents. Do check if you can use the printout from the above pdf link or you need to purchase them from Karnataka State Licensed Electrical Contractors Association office.
• If you have taken home loan for the property, get the letter stating 'originals verified' from your bank.
• You should also put the photocopy of the latest BESCOM bill.
• Place all the documents in the blank file
2. Verify the documents in Soujanya Counter :
• There will be a Soujanya counter in the BESCOM office set up for public enquiries. Here, the person attending would generally be soft spoken. Soujanya means courtesy in Kannada. Verify your documents with the person, who would also guide you on subsequent steps - meeting JE and submitting to the person in charge attending change of name requests. 
• Note : This verification is just to avoid obvious mistakes which would result in multiple trips to BESCOM office, wasting your time. Actual verification would be done by the official in charge of change of name requests.
3. Get Field Report from JE :
• With the required documents approach the JE of your BESCOM subdivision, who will check the documents and prepare the field report. He would require details of the installed BESCOM meter in your house like Make, Serial Number, Capacity, Present Reading. You can note down these details before hand and provide to him, as most of the times, for change transfer, there would be no inspection. Otherwise, you can take a photo of the meter to identify the details of the meter. But if he insists on inspection, it would be done by the line man.
• Verification by the BESCOM lineman : JE may ask BESCOM lineman to visit the premises and note the required details.
• Once the details are recorded in the sheet(2nd page of application), JE would sign with his official seal. Attach this to the file already containing other documents.
4. Verification by BESCOM official :
• Ask the person in Soujanya counter, which BESCOM official would handle the change of name request. He would check the documents and if found proper, would generate the service request for the application.
• Once the service request id(SR) is generated, the BESCOM official would instruct you to pay the transfer fees, which would be around Rs.100
5. Pay the fees for change of name : 
• Pay the fees in the cash counter and get the receipt. Attach the receipt to the file. 
• Note : Payment of fees may take time if the queue is long. If BESCOM would allow the applicant to pay the fees for change of name online, it would reduce the waiting time.
6. Submit the documents : 
• Once you pay the fees for transfer, you are almost done. Submit the file to the BESCOM official who had generated service request id for your request and you are done!
7. Track your application in BESCOM website : 
• You can track your request status in BESCOM bill payment site. You need to create a user id for this. 
• Usually the official would say it would take 10 days to finish the transfer process. But it would be much faster and change of name would reflect in the next month billing cycle.

Important Notes :

• You don't have to pay any bribe to change the name in your BESCOM bill.
• It takes a bit of patience and diligence to get the thing done. So, don't give up. Don't approach any agent. JE and BESCOM official may not be in his seat all the time. So, you may have to wait and but do not loose patience!
• If it is a Saturday, you should submit the documents to BESCOM official, handling change of name requests before 1 pm. 
• To give you an idea of what the agents would charge for change in name, here is my experience. I got contact details of a person on the net, who would do the process. He quoted Rs.4500. It is understandable that agents would be charging for their service. But Rs.4000 for the service with documents costing around Rs.500 with a day's effort is too much. 
• I could do the transfer with following expenses.
• Purchase of Bond and Agreement : Rs. 400/-
• Transfer fees : Rs.100/- 
• Time Spent : Around 5 hours
• Fuel expenses : Negligible 
• So, I believe it is worth the effort saving Rs.4000/- which would be handy in paying BESCOM bills for the next four months!