Source: China Business Daily

Our reporter Cheng Wei reports from Beijing.

Chengdu Bureau of economy and Information Technology and Chengdu Market Supervision Administration jointly issued a circular on April 20.EuropeanroulettetableSince April, the city has received a total of 1996 complaints about gas problems as of April 19, these complaints reflect the four major problems in the city's gas enterprises, and the city instructs the gas enterprises to give a full refund to the gas charges that have been investigated and confirmed.

These four major problems are respectively, there are problems of copying by estimation and illegal estimation; there are loopholes in the billing collection system, and the supplementary recording process is not transparent; the gas billing cycle changes at will, and the pricing is not standard; to solve the public demand for service awareness is poor, the way of work is simple.

A Weibo post by playwright Li Yaling has further increased the popularity of Chengdu citizens' doubts about the "gas meter runs fast". However, Chengdu responded promptly and made a quick response when the number of complaints was less than 2000. Photo Source: Internet

Chengdu and "burning": set up a joint special class to deal with it.

Since April this year, Chengdu 12345 hotline has received a total of 1996 complaints about gas problems as of April 19, and netizens have posted posts questioning gas meter measurement, gas charges, enterprise services and other issues, the notice said.

"in the process of accepting complaints, we found that there were problems in gas enterprises. The municipal party committee and municipal government attached great importance to it and ordered the departments of market supervision, economics and credit, housing construction and other departments to immediately set up joint work classes to interview gas enterprises many times, urge them to fulfill their main responsibilities, and seriously treat and accept public complaints. Twelve supervision groups were organized to be stationed in various districts (cities) and counties, and together with technical experts and community workers, they investigated and verified the problems reflected by the public by means of on-site verification, testing, data comparison, case demonstration, and so on. "

At present, all complaints have been accepted and 1189 have been handled, and the remaining 807 are being urgently handled.

On the evening of February 19, the results released by the joint investigation team of Chongqing about "gas meters running fast" showed that the number of complaints about gas metering received by the city was 2.Europeanroulettetable.60,000.

The "fast gas meter" incident in Chengdu came after a similar incident in Chongqing, where some local residents began to post that there had been a similar problem with its gas meter recently. In addition, recently, some residents of many provinces and cities in China have also had similar reactions or complaints.

As of 20:00 on 20 April, when the reporter of the "China Business Daily" was published, Chongqing and Chengdu had set up investigation teams or special classes on this issue, and investigated and dealt with it by means of interviews, enterprise-stationed verification, or on-site inspection.

The first problem is to use estimation instead of copying and illegal estimation.

Like the results of the investigation in Chongqing, the investigation results announced by Chengdu on April 20 did not confirm the remote control of intelligent gas meters; the installation of small-diameter pipes in front of the gas meters accelerated the gas flow rate, resulting in a substantial increase in measurement data; and the possibility of adding nitrogen and air to gas.

The primary problem found out by Chengdu gas enterprises this time is the same as that in Chongqing: there exists the problem of using estimation instead of copying and illegal estimation.

According to the notice, there are illegal estimates when users are not at home or when they are not at home, and they do not communicate with users to approve the actual data in a timely manner, resulting in the problem that users are not at home, do not use gas, but still incur gas charges. For example, a user in Jinjiang District reflected that the gas enterprise did not read the meter at the scene and misestimated the cost, and the gas charge was estimated to be more than 100 cubic meters a month. After investigation and verification, the actual base of the gas meter without verification is 706 cubic meters, which is charged according to the estimated 791 cubic meters, and the user charges 85 cubic meters more.

At present, gas enterprises have been instructed to complete the refund treatment.

For example, a user in Qingyang District reflects the multi-estimated cost of the gas enterprise. After investigation and verification, the user was estimated to receive 39 cubic meters and 60 cubic meters of gas in February and March 2024 respectively, charging 75 cubic meters more than the actual gas charge, and the previous user has paid 215.82 yuan according to the estimated gas intake. At present, after the gas enterprises have obtained the consent of the users, the overcharged fees will be deducted from the gas charges in the later stage.

In the classic case of Chengdu's "gas meter runs fast", playwright Li Yaling posted on Weibo on April 17: "I always feel that my gas meter is also wrong. For example, in the past two months when I went to Hainan, I still paid more than 996 yuan for gas. In other words, I used more than 500 square meters of gas, an average of more than 7 square meters a day, but there was no one at home at all."

Put a case on file to investigate and deal with the "act" of stopping gas and urging fees.

The second biggest problem found in the current round of verification of Chengdu gas enterprises is that there are loopholes in the billing collection system and the recording process is not transparent.

For example, a user of Chengdu High-tech Zone questioned its gas arrears of 17290 yuan. After on-site verification, the data acquisition system installed on the old meter has functional defects. when the monthly gas consumption of users exceeds 1000 cubic meters, the acquisition system can only return the last three digits, and users actually use 17812 cubic meters of gas in 67 months. however, the gas enterprise charging system shows that it is 12787 cubic meters, with a cumulative shortfall of 5025 cubic meters. When replacing the new meter, the gas enterprise will miss the one-time recording of the data for many years, one-time billing, one-time notice collection, the data recording process is not transparent, and did not communicate with the user.

Third, the gas billing cycle changes at will, and the pricing is not standard. The billing cycle of gas enterprises in the same residential area or even the same user is not unified, and there is a serious lack of public notice, resulting in users questioning the billing rules. For example, a user in Shuangliu District has a minimum billing period of 1 day and a maximum billing period of 156 days, resulting in an one-time payment of gas charges for 5 months. For example, a user in Pidu District moved into a house in August 2023, and it was not until March of the following year that someone came to read the meter and told the user that he owed more than 1000 yuan.

This time, Chengdu also carried out a case investigation on the crude gas stoppage of the city's gas enterprises.

According to the notice, a failure occurred in the remote return system of a user's gas meter in Longquanyi District, resulting in the missing transmission of 4958 cubic meters of gas data. the gas enterprise did not take the initiative to check the user's data, and failed to find the equipment problem and replace it in a timely manner. As a result, the user missed the gas fee of more than 15000 yuan in four months, especially if the gas enterprise did not reach an agreement with the user, and took gas stoppage measures for the call fee.

The circular showed that the local regulatory authorities "will seriously investigate and deal with this act, and a case has been put on file for investigation."

Self-remorse: supervision is "not timely and not in place"

Judging from the current investigation and verification, the city has not found any problems such as gas meter measurement and quality, gas quality, and changing gas meter measurement through remote control.

In accordance with the unified arrangements of the Chengdu municipal party committee and municipal government, the investigation work of the city is still in-depth, and a joint investigation team has been sent to gas enterprises such as Chengdu Gas Group to thoroughly investigate related problems and carry out centralized rectification. The illegal and illegal acts confirmed by the investigation and the relevant responsible persons shall be organized and dealt with in accordance with the law and discipline in accordance with the law, until the legal responsibility shall be investigated; for the gas charges that have been investigated and confirmed to be overcharged, the relevant gas enterprises will be ordered to make a full refund.

The circular also said that the above problems exposed the confusion of billing management, the lack of service awareness and the failure to fulfill the main responsibilities of gas enterprises, as well as the lack of timely management and supervision and law enforcement of government functional departments.

The gas problem involves the vital interests of the general public. "We will learn a lesson profoundly, take a highly responsible attitude towards the people, never tolerate or accommodate the problems found, comprehensively and thoroughly investigate and seriously deal with them, carry out special rectification actions on gas problems throughout the city, strengthen industry supervision, and earnestly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the general public."

(editor: Meng Qingwei Review: Hao Cheng proofread: Yan Yuxia)