As part of the government efforts to ease the burden of the Rakyat during the on-going Movement Control Order (MCO) which was implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the country, a set of initiatives called Pakej Rangsangan Ekonomi Prihatin Rakyat (PRIHATIN) was announced by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin last month.
While it might be referred to as an economic stimulus, plenty of these initiatives actually apply directly to the daily life of the Rakyat. One of them is the discounts on Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) electricity bills for six months starting from April onwards.
In case you missed the announcement, here is the discount rate for residential customers which is being categorized according to total monthly consumption:
1 to 200kWh: 50% discount
201 to 300kWh: 25% discount
301 to 600kWh: 15% discount
Above 600kWh: 2% discount
The tiered discount is meant to provide financial relief especially for users within the B40 income group. Given that we are already in the tail end of the month, it is likely that you already receive your TNB bill for April and has noticed the “Diskaun Rangsangan Ekonomi” label in it.
But at a glance, the discount might not seem right, isn’t it?
Well, for starters, the actual bill period covered by your April bill is likely to start sometime in March instead of this month itself. Take my own home bill for April as an example which covers a duration of 30 days from 10 March until 8 April.
Then, there is also the fact the PRIHATIN discount is only applicable for electricity consumption starting from 1 April onwards. In reference to my home bill, that means there is no discount on my usages from 10 until 31 March.
Additionally, the PRIHATIN discount rate that is being automatically applied to customers’ bill is based on their total monthly consumption as per what I’ve pointed earlier. Since TNB does not perform on-site meter reading during MCO, the company is using the previous consumption figure as the foundation to calculate the charges for the bill in April.
In my case, my home consumed 519kWh of electricity according to my bill in March, which means I am eligible for 15% discount under the PRIHATIN initiative. Now, let us move on to the actual calculation, using the information provided by TNB:
From there, compare the amount above to what that were stated on my actual home bill for April. While my calculation is off by 1 sen in the discount part, the grand total is still right on point.
The calculation for the May bill should be much easier though since all you need to do is just apply the PRIHATIN discount directly to the bill since the bill duration is completely within the scope of PRIHATIN discount period.
However, do note that TNB will adjust your bill according to the actual consumption once the company is able to resume on-site meter reading after the MCO is over.
Since TNB is not able to perform on-site meter reading due to MCO constraints and for your own safety, this also means the company is not able to provide physical bill at the moment. So, if you wondering where is the bill and it is already past your usual billing date, do head on to myTNB Portal website or download myTNB mobile app to obtain the digital bill instead.
Meanwhile, to learn more about the PRIHATIN discount for your electric bill, do make sure that you check out tnb.com.my/prihatin.
This article is brought to you by TNB.
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