'World's longest' 320-digit OTP haunts prepaid electricity consumers

Salah Uddin Mahmud, a resident of Shonir Akhra in the capital, received a 320-digit one-time password (OTP) via SMS on his phone to recharge his prepaid electricity balance. With his balance running low, Salahuddin feared his home would be left without power.

After transferring the balance digitally to his prepaid meter card, he awaited the OTP.

He would then have to input it manually into the meter to complete the transaction.

Typically, the OTP consists of 20 characters and the entire process usually takes less than a minute. However, receiving 320 characters this time was unexpected and surprising.

The electricity provider appeared to be aiming for a record-breaking length. Reading and manually entering such a lengthy code became a challenging task for him.

Faced with this difficulty, Salahuddin opted to print out the OTP code and have someone read it aloud to him. What was expected to take mere seconds turned into hours of effort.

Salahuddin's experience is not unique; others have encountered similar situations.

Official data from 2022 shows that there are currently 51.7 lakh consumers who use the prepaid meter system. Many among these across the country have begun complaining of OTP codes exceeding 200 characters.

Taking to social media, one consumer, Aseem Talukder from Sylhet, wrote, "I do not understand why it takes 240, 320, 350 to 360 digits to recharge a normal meter. In the name of digitalisation, how can someone come up with such a way to increase the harassment of common people? Do they not have any common sense?"

Mohammed Tariqul Hoque, the chief engineer at the Dhaka Power Distribution Company, told TBS, "Customers often encounter such issues during changes in electricity tariffs, times of increased load shedding, new connections, or some internal changes."

Tariqul also said they had a new plan for meter transition – from pre-paid meter to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which would make paying bills easier in the coming days.

But this path to improved service is only irking those waiting to be served.

Md Fazlul Karim Patwary, a professor at the Institute of Information Technology of Jahangirnagar University, said the hassle was completely unnecessary.

"It could be a simple system like those used by online mobile banking apps. The power distribution companies have created an unnecessary digital hassle.  As a programmer, I cannot understand why customers have to press 320 digits in this digital world. It is a whimsical decision of the power division," he said.

Patwary also said every citizen has a National Identity card, so the Power Division can make a lower-cost electricity app for bill payment purposes.

Chattogram resident Ali Ahmad said, "I am a person of little education. I do not understand how to deal with so many numbers. I tried and made mistakes twice, then the meter was locked. Now I have to wait for someone else to come from the electricity office and do this simple task for me."

Zainul Abedin, a resident of Savar's Nama Genda area, said, "In my house, the electricity meter is under the stairs. Earlier, I used to recharge the meter by pressing 20 digits, now I am being sent over 240 digits. I made a mistake the first two times and the meter was locked. The tenants of my house are also facing the same problem.

"What kind of digitalisation is this?" Zainul questioned.

A Power Development Board official, breaking down the reason, said all customer data is updated at the beginning of the year.

"The reason for using such a large number is that each number represents the customer's name, category, etc information. These encrypted texts are stored on the servers of the distribution companies. If there is no need to update any new data, it can be recharged with 20 digits," he said.

He, however, said the problem would not resurface until the next price change.

Pre-paid meters were introduced in 2011 to create an automatic billing facility. Currently, pre-paid meters have undergone further modernisation and are connected to online smart prepayment meters.

According to power ministry data, the total number of electricity consumers in the country till July last year was 4.31 crore. A total of 11.85% of electricity consumers in the country are covered by prepaid meters.

Six electricity distribution companies are working to install prepaid meters in the country. These are the Bangladesh Electricity Development Board, the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, the Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited, the Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited, the West Zone Power Distribution Company Ltd and the Northern Electricity Supply Company. 

Six projects are underway to continue the installation of prepaid meters.